THIS afternoon should have seen Kirkistown taking centre stage on the point-to-point front, however it has become the second fixture in as many weekends to be cancelled due to the recent wet spell.

Last weekend it was Rathcannon that was claimed by the deluge of rain that has hit the country throughout the month of October, and Kirkistown, the venue of the North Down Foxhounds fixture, was found to be waterlogged when inspected last week, which has resulted in the cancellation of today’s meeting.

Soft ground has been the dominant factor across the opening six weekends right from the outset of the season when Castletown Geoghegan kickstarted the campaign on soft ground.

Nine of the 11 subsequent fixtures since that season-opening fixture have been run on ground which has featured either soft or heavy in the going description.

So often the month of October has gone either two ways ground wise. The opening weeks of the 2021 autumn campaign saw good ground prevailing, and even by December of that same season there was a Lingstown fixture run on good ground.

Challenge

The irregular nature of the climate at present does pose more of a challenge for all involved in the sport, from the volunteer committees to handlers, many of whom may have readied their better ground horses for the early weeks of the season in the hope of getting early runs in before the winter ground had set in.

Considering all that, the number of runners in the early weeks of this season has held up reasonably well.

Compared with the opening six weekends of last season, the average number of runners per fixture has increased, albeit the increase is skewed by the continued strength of the four-year-old division which contributed to the first division of the season that occurred at Lisronagh last Saturday.

THE ramping up of the National Hunt season in October has brought with it a strong start to the campaign for former point-to-pointers who have won a total of 130 races under rules during the month.

From Trent Lane winning at Fontainebleau in France, to Monbeg Stream who was a big timber winner stateside in Genesee Valley, those success have been spread far and wide, and were headlined by a trio of Grade 2 victories for horses that started their careers with a number of Wexford-based handlers.

Colin Bowe’s Knockanard winner Captain Teague build upon his Grade 1 Champion Bumper placing by making a winning start over hurdles in the Grade 2 Persian War Novices’ Hurdle at Chepstow for Paul Nicholls.

That success was followed by another Grade 2 novice hurdle victory, this time for Lookaway, and Sean Doyle’s debut Kildorrery winner led home a clean sweep of the placings in the Sky Bet Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham for horses that had all run throughout the 2021/’22 pointing season here.

His Cheltenham victory was followed 48 hours later by the Old Roan Chase success at Aintree of Jetoile, as the Jeremy gelding achieved his career highlight success having run four times in points for Richard Black.

Those positive results auger well ahead of today’s rescheduled Grade 1 Ladbrokes Champion Chase at Down Royal, which at the revised entry stage earlier this week saw pointing exports account for four of the six contenders including Gerri Colombe, Minella Indo and Envoi Allen.