THE autumn season comes to a close with a double header at Boulta and Tattersalls in eight days’ time on Sunday, December 10th, and when action in the pointing fields does resume at Dromahane on Saturday, December 30th, following the Christmas break, it will kickstart a 73-strong programme of fixtures for the spring 2024 term.

The directors of the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase CLG (INHSC) have amended the rules surrounding the eligibility of horses to compete in that spring term in a welcome effort to boost the number of horses participating in point-to-pointing.

They have elected to push the qualification cut-off date for track horses looking to compete between the flags back by a month. Horses will now be eligible to receive a hunter certificate if they have not run under rules on or after December 1st providing they have not won on the race track since March 1st.

Previously the spring cut off came into effect on November 1st, and this slight alteration sensibly brings the spring cut-off date in line with the existing autumn cut-off date of September 1st, one month before the autumn season commences.

The lopsided age breakdown in the current era of point-to-pointing is well established, and it continues to grow with four-year-olds accounting for one in every two active hunter certificates as of the beginning of this week.

Imbalance

One element impacting that imbalance and the growing dependence on four-year-olds, is the continued decline in the number of horses with previous race track form reverting to the point-to-point sphere.

Typically these are horses of all abilities, be it a former top grade performer switching to open lightweights at the end of their careers, or an older maiden that may have failed to make the desired breakthrough on the track and has had their targets lowered.

Just 278 of the current 1,302 hunter certs are for horses who had previously run on the track. That is down from 435 at the previous point in the 2013/14 campaign, and whilst the overall number of certs has also fallen in that time, the decline of track horses coming pointing has dropped further.

Instead of accounting for close to 30% of certs at this point 10 years ago, they presently account for just over 20%.

This recently announced change to the track cut-off date for the spring term will hopefully begin the process of stemming that decline, and begin to encourage more track horses, particularly those eligible for older maiden races to explore the different avenue that point-to-pointing provides, most notably in the spring when the number of opportunities increases significantly.

NEXT Sunday’s Louth Foxhounds card at Tattersalls will mark the introduction of a new race to the point-to-point programme with an unlimited winners’ race.

Up to now, as maiden winners progress through the ranks in winners’ company they are pushed into the open division after winning their fourth point-to-point race, where they could come up against battle hardened former graded level performers at a very early point in their career.

This extra category of winners’ races will afford them an opportunity to race against fellow non-racecourse winners irrespective of how many point-to-point races they have won.

The hope being that they give the more traditional point-to-pointer further competitive opportunities. Next week’s race at Tattersalls will be followed by two further races for the category in the spring, at the Wexford Foxhounds fixture in Ballinaboola on February 2nd and the Muskerry Foxhounds fixture at Dromahane on May 5th.

A number of former champion point-to-point horses, including last season’s champion Rocky’s Howya, gained their championship success without having won on the track, and therefore would have been eligible for these races.

It may be a consideration for future seasons to either exclude open winners from entering, or at least penalise them, given they are already proven up to winning in open company.

PREVIOUS winners Colin Bowe, Derek O’Connor and Barry O’Neill are again among the five nominees in the point-to-point category for the 2023 HRI Awards, and the trio will be joined by Pa King and Maxine O’Sullivan for the upcoming awards ceremony.

Bowe matched his best ever season with 46 winners, which left him just one shy of Robert Tyner’s 2009 record, with the season also bringing him his 11th leading handler prize, a title that he has won nine years in a row.

Pa King not only enjoyed the biggest success of his career with a first Cheltenham Festival victory aboard Angels Dawn in the Kim Muir Chase, but he also retained his western title, which he shared with fellow point-to-point category nominee Derek O’Connor.

O’Connor broke yet another landmark when recording his 1,300th success in the pointing fields at Bellharbour back in February, and also clinched the Punchestown Champion Hunter Chase, the big domestic prize in that division, aboard Its On The Line.

That top hunter chaser also contributed to Maxine O’Sullivan’s winners tally last season as she became champion lady rider for an eighth time.

She is a former winner of the National Hunt Achievement Award with her father Eugene following their Foxhunter success in 2020. Meanwhile, it was national title number seven for Barry O’Neill as he dominated in the rider’s ranks, with his highest season-ending strike rate to date, alongside regional titles in the east and north among his season highlights.

The winner will be announced at the ceremony in Dublin on Monday evening.

Point-to-point rankings

GORDON Elliott is racing through the winners at present, both on the track and in points, and his Lingstown victor Son Of Anarchy (95++) was a fourth maiden winner within the space of a fortnight for the stable.

The Soldier Of Fortune gelding must rank highly among Elliott’s quartet of maiden winners this term, after he breezed to what visually appeared to be an effortless 15-length success, winning unextended as 40 lengths covered the four finishers.

The opening divide of that four-year-old maiden was a more closely-run affair as Twoohthree (90+) outstayed Ol Man Dingle to win by a neck, with three of the first four showing likeable improvement from their latest efforts.

In the two divisions of the mares’ equivalent on the card, Presenting Doy (80+) overcame the challenge of a vastly more experienced rival to win on her first completed start, whilst newcomer My Forever Annie (81+) just had the measure of the previously placed Railway Bell, as the pair fought out a prolonged battle from the home bend to prove their toughness.

A game attitude was also a big asset at Moig South to master the heavy ground, and that is what Backmersackme (91+) produced when staying strongly to pick off eye-catching newcomer Rock On Jet after that rival had set a strong gallop, whilst First Confession (89++) is value for a lot more than the winning margin in the auction maiden.

At Boulta, Mountain Molly (84+) got the better of the form horse in the four-year-old mares’ maiden, as the front trio are all worth noting, whilst in the geldings’ division, Mulinas (92+) showed a good turn of foot after the last in a far more steadily run division to the more strongly-run race that Belliano (94+) ran out an impressive winner of. He made a swift move right around rivals on the home bend and there looks to be a lot more to come from him.