AS the month of May draws to a close, graduates of Irish point-to-point racing look set to record their most successful year on the track to date, with 1,098 races up to last weekend in Britain and Ireland having been won by horses with Irish point-to-point form to their name.

This is the 12th consecutive season that the number of track winners for point-to-point graduates has been recorded, and with the exception of the 2006/2007 campaign where the number of winners fell by just 10 on the previous year, the number of track winners has continued to climb each year to what is expected to be the current previously unreached position.

Looking back now, the 455 winners that were recorded 12 years ago during the 2004/2005 season, pales in comparison with the current levels of success, as it is a figure that has multiplied over the subsequent 12 years, increasing by a notable 141%.

Even when looking back just five years, the number of track winners were only marginally past the 600 mark, not far from half of this year’s total, which tells the story of a massive growth in the very recent past. In fact on average, we have witnessed a 10% year-on-year increase in the additional numbers of pointing graduates enjoying track success over those 12 years, highlighting the continuing levels of growth.

This year alone has also featured the single most successful month for Irish pointers on the track, with a sizeable 176 winners having been recorded during March 2016, an increase of 10 on what was the previously most successful month back in December 2013, whilst 165 winners were recorded in November of that same year.

BLACKTYPE SUCCESS

Within the cohort of 1,098 track winners this year are 78 black type successes of which 15 have come at the highest level in Grade 1 company, eight Cheltenham Festival winners, Aintree, Irish and Welsh National winners, in addition to a host of lucrative handicaps, such as Cheltenham’s Paddy Power Gold Cup and Caspian Caviar Gold Cup, the Paddy Power Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas, and many more.

With the number of horses running in point-to-points having fallen over the last couple of seasons for a number of factors, it is of great encouragement for the industry to see that the year-on-year increase of success on the track, the big measure of how Irish pointing graduates are performing, is remaining so resilient, highlighting how the quality within the ranks appears to have been retained.

Aside from the sheer quantities and quality of prizes that are being won by pointing graduates, one aspect of the track winners that have been recorded that has been particularly noteworthy in recent months, has been the successful quick turnaround.

A significant number of horses, who have run in four-year-old maidens during the most recent autumn campaign, have gone on to enjoy track success for their new connections this spring.

Since the introduction of the autumn campaign back in 2001, the quality of track performers that we have seen graduate from autumn maidens has continually risen. Grand National winner Rule The World, in addition to Cheltenham Festival victors Western Warhorse, Holywell and Yorkhill have all won autumn four-year-old races in recent seasons.

Highlighting this point, the former, a three-time Grade 1 winner this year, won his maiden last season for Colin McKeever, before progressing to win a pair of bumpers for Willie Mullins, in that same season, the first of which was just three months after that initial points success.

WINNING PATTERN

That pattern of autumn four-year-old maidens producing immediate track winners the following spring has certainly continued into this season with all bar one of the 14 four-year-old maidens for geldings throughout the month of November having produced at least one horse which has finished placed on the track (see below).

Those recent track successes for autumn four-year-olds, including the number of first-time out bumper winners, also goes some way in highlighting the sizeable impact that Irish point-to-point graduates are having in bumpers alone at the beginning of their track careers.

This is something which a number of professional punters have tuned into in recent seasons.

Exploiting what in many instances can be over-priced pointing graduates making their track debuts in what are perceived to be unfavourable circumstances in bumpers.

In recent weeks alone we have seen 13 bumpers won by horses who ran solely in four-year-old maidens in the latest autumn campaign, whilst 85 bumpers this season have been won by Irish pointers, up from just 30 12 years ago.

These figures also tell the story of the shift in the profile of horses which are being produced from the Irish pointing fields at present.

Many of the leading four and five-year-olds that are graduating from this sphere are often now a sharper type, with a greater blend of speed and stamina that in many cases has resulted from a more varied pedigree. This contrasts to the profile of a stereotypical three mile chaser that in previous decades was synonymous with the profile of the typical Irish pointer that was being sold to England.

This shift is born out in the accomplishments of recent Irish pointing graduates at the highest level on the track. The statistics tell us that 12 years ago, just 10 of the 31 blacktype successes that were won by Irish pointers that season were recorded over distances of up to and including two mile four furlongs, with the majority failing at the more extreme distance of three miles where stamina is at a premium, distances which Irish pointers had been synonymous with for decades previous.

In contrast, the majority of the blacktype successes for Irish pointers on the track this season, 46 of the 78 in total, have come over distances of two-mile four furlongs or shorter.

This equates to a staggering shift from 32% to 59% of all blacktype successes per season now being recorded over shorter distances, a rise of 27% over the 12 year period.

SUCCESS STORIES

The 2015 Champion Hurdle winner Faugheen - a dual Grade 1 winner over two miles this season, God’s Own – the winner of the Grade 1 two mile Melling Chase and Champion Chase at the Aintree and Punchestown Festivals, in addition to Black Hercules, It’s a Freebee, Killultagh Vic, Days Hotel, Yorkhill, Vaniteux and Bellshill, are just a handful of the horses who have enjoyed graded success this season over shorter distances having begun their careers between the flags.

It is this expanding number of pointing graduates with the pace to drop back in trip, that are contributing to the growing representation that Irish pointers are having within the numbers of bumper winners each season, by possessing a greater mix of speed and stamina which allows them to take on their flat-bred rivals in that division, as well as over shorter trips over hurdles and fences.

Needless to say, with the winners of the Welsh, Irish and English Nationals, in addition to half of the 39 runners who lined up for this year’s four-mile three furlong feature at Aintree having begun their careers between the flags, the traditions of staying chasers graduating from the pointing fields has not been lost.

However, the statistics do tell the story of the evolving profile of the typical young Irish point-to-point graduate over the past decade and the success that they are now enjoying on the track.