A YORKSHIRE-based company is supplying 50,000 bricks for a £3.5m injured jockeys’ centre.

The York Handmade Brick Company, based in Alne, near Easingwold, is providing the bricks for Jack Berry House – the Injured Jockeys Fund’s rehabilitation and respite centre in Old Malton Road, in Malton.

David Armitage, chairman and managing director of York Handmade, said: “The fund, which is raising the £3.5m needed to build the centre, provided tremendous support for my daughter, Annabelle, a jockey who was badly injured in a fall. As a family, we are very grateful, so it is a great honour to provide the bricks for Jack Berry House, which is the first centre of its kind for jockeys in the north of England.

“Apart from providing individually-named bricks for the wall, we are supplying the bricks to build the rest of the centre, too. It is a major contract.”

The first brick will be laid this month and Jack Berry House is scheduled to open next autumn.

The centre will include a gym, hydrotherapy pool, treatment rooms and respite accommodation.

Jack Berry, the trainer who is the driving force behind the centre, said: “We are delighted that York Handmade’s wonderful bricks are going to be an integral part of our centre. We are very keen to use local companies whenever possible and the fact that York Handmade makes such fantastic individual bricks meant our decision was a no-brainer.

“One of the key features of the new centre will be a special wall where each brick has been bought for £50 by supporters, who include leading racing personnel past and present, such as Tony McCoy, Lester Piggott, Vincent O’Brien, Barry Hills and John Francome. It is particularly fitting that the new centre will open next year, because that is the 50th anniversary of the Injured Jockeys Fund, which was set up in after champion riders Tim Brookshaw and Paddy Farrell were paralysed in falls which ended their careers.

“Since then, the fund has raised and spent more than £17m helping more than 1,000 jockeys.”

Lisa Hancock, chief executive of the Injured Jockeys Fund, said: “We are very excited that work is under way and that within the next 12 months we will see the North with its own rehabilitation centre for jockeys. Fundraising is now beginning in earnest.”