By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS

The Jockey Club at Mexico City’s Hipódromo de las Américas horse track held its first-ever Talitá Kum race on Saturday, June 29, to help raise money for scholarships for neurologically challenged children.

At 6:45 p.m. sharp, Konny Pérez Espino, founder and director of the Talitá Kum Foundation, waved the checkered flags that initiated the eighth race of the day, with all proceeds going to support a year’s free rehabilitation and training for 10 underprivileged Mexican children with developmental problems.

Competing against both U.S. and Mexican horses, the hands-down favorite, Lanudo, a dark brown bronco, won the five-and-a-half-furlough race.

In addition to the race’s cup, more than 150 supporters of Talitá Kum donated 2,000 pesos each to attend the event in a select section of the Jockey Club, where they enjoyed a buffet of traditional Mexican cuisine and were given artwork produced by some of the foundation’s children.

The Talitá Kum Fundación is a nonprofit organization founded in 1998 to help assimilate special-needs children and their families into normal Mexican society through training and acceptance.

It currently attends to about 50 students each year.