British point-to-pointing doesn’t always have a lot to shout about as it looks enviously across the Irish Sea where its cousins thriving, but results at Sandown and Aintree had everyone buzzing at the first Chaddesley Corbett fixture of the season in Worcestershire.
As though the excitement of seeing the five-year-old No Drama This End, graduate of a maiden at Badbury Rings, Dorset in February 2024, make it two Grade Two hurdles wins from two starts at Sandown wasn’t enough to talk about, the breathless success of the ever-green Twig in the Becher Chase over two-thirds of the Grand National course warmed the cockles of even the chilliest heart on a dank Sunday.
That was a ninth win under Rules for Twig – ridden again by a clearly thrilled Beau Morgan, 20, in the silks of his mother Georgia – since making the switch from the point-to-point field, where he won five (two at Badbury Rings), to the care of Ben Pauling with whom he started but failed to make the grade in two bumpers – what a difference two seasons ‘between the flags’ made.
In contrast, No Drama This End was bought for €26,000 by seven-time champion jockey and top trainer Will Biddick before running away with his maiden and being sold on to Max McNeill and family and Chris and Giles Barber for £160,000 – you see, it can be done, and there were two maidens at Chaddesley Corbett, with a good number of runners in each, and with owners and trainers all dreaming of a similarly good return.
In some places, what’s seen as the unacceptable commercialisation of an amateur sport is sniffed at, but everyone has to adapt and if people want point-to-pointing in Britain, the historic roots from which jump racing was spawned, to survive they should be encouraging people who aim to be more commercial. The key is to find a balance of the traditional and the more modern approach.
Point to point racing should be brilliant for horse racing at either end of a Rules career: a place for the Twigs and the No Drama This Ends to get going, and, as was demonstrated by former stars like Midnight River – a first winner as a trainer for Bridget Skelton (Andrews), wife of Harry – and Paint The Dream a chance to keep on galloping in gentler waters when their racecourse-proper days are done. Perfect.
+ Will horse racing pop up at Towcester again?
It was good to see when driving along the A43 through Northamptonshire this week that signs to Towcester racecourse remain in place more than seven years after horseracing was stopped there: since a card on Monday 21 May 2018, it has been greyhounds-only, including the valuable English Derby. However, that signage could come in useful if continuing whispers about a resumption prove correct. Back in 2018, prospects for the future looked bleak when Towcester Racecourse Company went into administration, and the final fixture dates were sold off, a turn of events that came less than five years after the track was briefly centre of the racing universe when AP McCoy partnered his 4,000th winner up its examining hill. However, the appointment of Richard Thomas as CEO is seen as a highly significant step. The thing is that while the track itself, plus facilities, are still in place, getting onto the fixture list may be problematic; however, Thomas, who made his name as a dynamic force at Chester, has a well-earned reputation for getting stuff done. The odds about horseracing popping up at Towcester again have definitely shortened.
+ Something for the weekend…the feature Saturday race at Cheltenham – the Support the Hunt Family Fund Gold Cup – is a terrific race for a terrific cause. I’m thoroughly looking forward to listening to my brilliant former BBC colleague, who lost his wife and two daughters in the cruellest of circumstances last year, call home the winner in what will be a highly-charged, but, as ever, high-octane and highly professional broadcast. While Jagwar relishes the challenge of the New Course, it would be good to see his stable more in its full stride; on a course which places more emphasis on stamina than the Old Course, which was in use for the Paddy Power Gold Cup in November, you could easily see Hoe Joly Smoke (3rd that day, keeping on) turn the tables on the runner-up Vincenzo; the track should also suit Joseph O’Brien’s Kim Roque, second in a novices’ handicap chase at the last meeting; of the rest, Captain Harry put in a fine display over the Grand National fences at Aintree on his return, and at a time when Venetia Williams was even quieter than she is now, Martator ran a lovely race at Ascot. As I said, a terrific race for a terrific cause. Probably, for me, Kim Roque to be only the fourth Irish winner this century.
