Talk of the tracks last weekend certainly revolved around the results that recent point-to-point horses had achieved in the sales ring at Cheltenham in the preceding 48 hours.

The Tattersalls Cheltenham February Sale has the added interest each year of offering the first catalogue of horses with four-year-old maiden form from that year, and last week’s edition offered nine such horses who had made their respective racing debuts on these shores across the preceding three weekends of action in the age group.

The No Risk At All gelding Korkoran proved to be the star attraction from the early crop, with bloodstock agent Ed Bailey and fledgling British trainer Harry Derham purchasing the Colin Bowe-trained Ballinaboola maiden winner for £240,000.

Interestingly, he was one of just two four-year-olds from that draft of nine four-year-olds to realise a six-figure sales price, having been joined in that regard by Mick Goff’s Kirkistown winner Karma Police, who was bought by bloodstock agent Jerry McGrath for £105,000.

That certainly points to a lack of fireworks around this initial cohort of four-year-old maiden form horses.

One theory could focus on the particularly small fields that have dominated the four-year-old campaign thus far in 2024.

The extended spell of heavy ground has unsurprisingly put off many from introducing their youngsters in unfavourable conditions, meaning many of the winning or placed four-year-olds of late have achieved their form in particularly small field contests, with a number of four-runner races having taken place in recent weeks.

The average field size for the 14 races in the age group throughout the month of February stood at just six, with only four of those contests reaching the threshold of eight runners for each-way betting to have been offered.

Healthy market

However, a wider review of the sales results from last week might fill the narrative. Initially, seeing that 33 of the 36 point-to-pointers found a new home might point to a very healthy market.

However, almost half of these failed to meet their reserve in the ring and were marked as private sales outside of the ring, which paints an altogether different picture.

Following the sale, Korkoran’s owner Walter Connors admitted that we were likely seeing a market correction, as he told the Racing Post: “I’d say we’re in a correction, there’s no doubt. But maybe that’s not a bad thing because people might have been a little bit run away with for the last few years. If this is it, we just have to adapt and cut our cloth accordingly.

“The clearance rate might be more of a worry than the actual top prices. If this is a reflection of where we are, then we’re old enough and long enough at it to go with it and start again.”

Full sales figures

That assessment is certainly backed up when comparing the full set of sales figures from this season against the same point last year.

To date, the 123 point-to-pointers that have been sold at public auction have generated just over £10 million for an average price of £82,516.

That average figure is £10,000 lower than the £92,244 average sum point-to-pointers had realised by this point in 2013, with their total turnover at public sales down £4.5million.

Sales reports from other areas of the National Hunt bloodstock sector in recent months have pointed to difficult trading conditions, so it is not unsurprising that a correction would be felt here.

Perhaps encouragingly for point-to-point vendors, while there has been a fall in the prices that they have been receiving for their form horses in the past four months, the current average price for this season is still running ahead of the same figure for the six years before the 2023 peak, suggesting that at least up to now, any such correction is measured.