RACING:THE trainee jockey programme at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (Race) in Kildare has been cancelled for 2010-11 after a review by the controversial State training agency Fás.

The agency has pulled its funding for the programme, whose list of graduates over 30 years includes names such as Johnny Murtagh and Conor O’Dwyer.

Thirty-two students who had been accepted for the next 10-month course have been contacted, and a Race spokesman said he hoped many will reapply next year if the scheme resumes.

Fás contributed approximately €350,000 to the scheme which, as well as being longer than many Fás courses, is also a residential programme.