IT is true to say that it is a sport’s weakest elements that provide the most accurate reflection as to the overall health of the sport.

In the context of point-to-pointing, it is the older maiden division which continues to lag behind other race categories at present and is an area that should be giving cause for concern to all.

This season has continued the downward trend of participation in the category. Ten years ago, 589 of the 1,537 hunter certificates were for horses aged six or older as they accounted for just under 40% of the certs at the time.

Flash forward to the same point this season, and the number of horses aged six or older accounts for just 23% of all hunter certificates. These are the horses that will fill all older maidens and the majority of winners and open races.

Focusing in specifically on the older maiden division this term, and the 16 races run in the category have produced an average field size of just six runners, with Castletown-Geoghegan on the opening weekend of the season the sole fixture eight weekends into the term to have held an older maiden with a line-up that reached double figures.

Smaller pool

Coupled with this smaller pool of horses, there is also a particularly strong demand from Britain for horses at this level where they are proving successful given their own issues, further reducing the number of repeat runners in the division.

The small fields this season in older maidens have occurred on weekends with only two to three races for the category each week, therefore any concern that this generates can only be amplified by the potential prospect of the upcoming spring term when there could be anything up to up five taking place on a single weekend in the month of April.

Point-to-pointing has long complimented the track well and served the industry in a number of functions and it could well be that it is racing under rules which could potentially offer one solution to the issue of dwindling field sizes in older maidens.

Horses rated in the 80 to 95 band on the track offer a significant population of ready-to-run horses in the spring months.

Crucially, with stable numbers at racecourses restricting the opportunities for them to run in these races, there is an oversupply of horses in this category who are being balloted at a significant rate from races during the spring period.

This coincides with the time of the year when point-to-pointing is likely to have too many older maiden races for the number of horses competing.

Currently if these horses were to run in an older maiden in March or April for example, they must not have run on the track after November 1st.

Flexibility

If a greater flexibility was afforded to horses aged six or older that were rated 80 to 95, whereby the November 1st restriction was removed for them specifically, not only would the number of runners in older maidens increase, but it would alleviate pressures on the track giving their owners a new avenue to follow with their horses for a time when there is the greatest pressure on the track for opportunities to run.

For example, with no National Hunt racing scheduled for the two days preceding the Punchestown Festival in April next year, and unsurprisingly no races for 80 to 95-rated horses at the Festival itself, there is going to be a clear pinch point in the schedule for what is approximately 40% of the population of National Hunt horses in this country.

Yet at the same time, there are seven point-to-point fixtures scheduled across the weekends either side of the Festival, with each likely to have an older maiden programmed.

Analysis of the last full point-to-point season pre-Covid shows that of the 120 horses that won either an older maiden, hunt maiden or unplaced maiden during the 2018/19 campaign, 73 of them went on to either win or finish placed on the track achieving an average handicap mark that was in excess of this 80 to 95 band.

This gives the necessary confidence that any opening up of older maidens to these additional track horses would go some way to making them more competitive without leaving them ripe for exploiting at the expense of point-to-pointers.

Opportunities

For authorities on the track, it also provides additional opportunities for horses that they are unable to cater for, ensuring it is unlikely to lead to much resistance from their side.

If it proved its merit in the spring term, it could also be expanded for the autumn season where we have already seen ample evidence of the need for additional horses in these races.

This is just one creative option open to the authorities in a bid to try and bolster the older maiden division, at a time when action is needed to try and reverse this unwelcome decline.