Team Teal 2024

FEBRUARY 1st TO MARCH 15th 2024

Team Teal female drivers will race to raise awareness and much-needed funds for ovarian cancer research.

What is Team Teal?

The WomenCan Team Teal campaign is a partnership with the harness racing industry in Australia and New Zealand. The industry’s advocacy and support of Team Teal is a significant contributor to fundraising for women with ovarian cancer.

The harness racing industry is proud of the contribution made by reinswomen and industry sponsors as it is one of the few sports with a balanced representation of women and men. This makes the support of ANZGOG’s research, improving life for women with gynaecological cancer, very relevant.

Across six weeks in February and March, all reinswomen race in teal pants to raise awareness and much-needed funds for ovarian cancer research when they cross the finish line first.

Funds raised support the Research Nurse Grant Program and the Survivors Teaching Students Program.

Team Teal History

The Team Teal campaign was created by Duncan McPherson OAM who lost his wife Lyn to ovarian cancer in 2010. In failing health, Lyn and her family began fundraising for ovarian cancer research and nurses supporting women in the research units, an initiative that Duncan McPherson connected with his passion for harness racing, co-founding Team Teal with fellow owners and trainers, Michael Taranto and Jim Connolly.

The campaign expanded from Victoria to New South Wales in 2016, to all Australian states in 2017 and internationally to New Zealand in 2018.

The vision of Team Teal is to continue to expand our efforts in raising awareness and much-needed funds for ovarian cancer Research Nurses and Survivors Teaching Students – Saving Women’s Lives.

Supporting Team Teal

Here are some ways the harness racing community in New Zealand gets involved:

• HRNZ donates $100 every time a female driver crosses the line first.
• Some of our clubs with meetings during the campaign donate every time a female driver crosses the line first at their race meetings.
• Our Ambassadors and some of our lady drivers have their own sponsors
• Clubs hold Team Teal events at their race meetings to raise awareness and much-needed funds.
• Industry participants very kindly donate some of their earnings.
• Racegoers purchasing teal merchandise and giving donations.

For any further information on Team Teal or to donate to the cause please contact Courtney at HRNZ [email protected] or 027 636 4355

Our ambassadors