Pointers for the future

James Thomas chats with Richard Pugh who explains the reasons behind the huge growth in the point-to-point sales division

WHEN EDMUND BLAKE challenged his neighbour Cornelius O’Callaghan to a race across country from St John’s Church in Buttevant to St Mary’s Church in Doneraile, County Cork, neither man could have possibly imagined what the four and a half mile match would foretell.

That 1752 contest is credited as being the first recorded steeplechase run in Ireland and laid down the blueprint for point-topoint racing, which was officially recognised in 1889 and is now a multi-million pound industry and an important proving ground for young NH horses.

Recent times have ushered in a boom period for the commercial point-to-point sector, particularly in Ireland, and there is now a strong element of success breeding success.

High levels of racecourse performance from point-to-point graduates fuels increasing demand – and prices – at boutique sales, which in turn gives the sport’s trainers greater financial firepower to restock on raw materials.

Indeed, 89 former Irish point-to-point graduates won 113 Graded races during the truncated jumps 2020-21 season. This number was headed by 27 Grade 1 victories achived by household NH names such as Bob Olinger, Envoi Allen, Honeysuckle, Minella Indo, Monkfish and Shishkin.

Of course, high achieving former pointers are not a new phenomenon, nor is the sport operating on a commercial basis. However, there is no mistaking that the landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, although the catalyst for the current situation came from far beyond the flags and fences of the point-to-point field.

While the last seven years have seen an acceleration in the flow of former point-topointers making up into Grade 1-winning jumpers, Richard Pugh, founder of p2p.ie and Tattersalls Ireland’s director of horsesin-training sales, says the wheels have been in motion for the current model since at least 2001.

The advent of the internet was the first building block in a new era for point-to-pointing. But not because of any direct impact on NH racing initially, rather that ready access to form, pedigrees, race replays and statistics transformed the Flat horse into a global commodity.

This meant that the kind of Flat performer, who once would have been tested over jumps, is now being sold for big money to race abroad, and with NH owners increasingly priced out of the market they had no alternative but to look elsewhere.

“It’s not a coincidence that we won’t see the likes of horses such as Royal Gait, Kribensis and Istabraq run over hurdles because the global market for those horses started making them very expensive for the NH owner,” says Pugh.

“It’s supply and demand; supply deteriorated from the Flat and the NH man, whether he cared or not about point-to-pointing, really didn’t have a choice.”

This shift was recognised by the BHA, who, in its 2015 jump racing review, noted that Irish point-to-points had overtaken Flat racing as the most popular source of previously raced NH recruits, writing: “The source of horses into jump racing has shifted significantly, with far fewer horses having their first run on the Flat compared to threefive years ago. The downturn in the number of Flat horses going jumping has created a reliance on Irish point-to-point.”

As the internet was disrupting the market for Flat performers, the point-to-point season was also being altered by an insidious external factor: foot-and-mouth disease.

It was in 2001, when the outbreak led to the traditional spring point-to-point season being cancelled, that the modern day autumn campaign was developed. Changes that were brought in as a quick fix proved so popular they were soon adopted on a permanent basis.

Prior to foot-and-mouth even the most renowned handlers tended to earn their living from other agricultural endeavours, training point-to-pointers as a sideline. But the introduction of an autumn season opened point-to-pointing up to a new world of commercial opportunities.

“Previous to [foot-and-mouth] you had people who were relatively self sufficient, or even wealthy in their own right, and as an additional layer of their business they had a point-to-pointer,” says Pugh. “Now there is enough substance and enough longevity to the season that they can frame a business around point-to-pointing.

“You can cash pre-Christmas or post-Christmas as the season goes on long enough. So at the same time that point-to-pointers were becoming more sought after because Flat horses were harder to get, a new generation of trainers could see a business model set up around point-to-pointing.”

So the demand for point-to-pointers was created by a shortfall in Flat recruits and the supply was fuelled by a recalibrated, more commercially friendly season, and the missing link in the chain between buyers and sellers was hit upon through the emergence of boutique sales.

In 2009, Brightwells began hosting auctions at Cheltenham and the select sale calendar has grown almost exponentially since, with Goffs and Tattersalls, who bought Brightwells in 2015, each hosting a busy calendar of events that bring a year-round supply of point-to-pointers with recent form to market.

While point-to-pointers had previously been traded privately by agents out in the field, Pugh says the increased transparency of a public auction, along with some sensational racecourse results, has underpinned a veritable explosion in prices.

“Now that these select sales are here buyers can put their hand on the horse’s leg, look in his eye, walk and trot him and buy into the process and not just take somebody’s word on it,” reports Pugh. “That isn’t to say people will always pick a better horse, but it’s that if you don’t, you still feel that you had every chance to do so.”

Moreover, it is well known that data helps stimulate the marketplace and in December 2003 Pugh launched p2p.ie.

Although he rather modestly asserts that “If it wasn’t me it would’ve been someone else” who started the online service, the fact remains that the website is now an industry leading source of information that has brought Irish point-to-point form, stats and content to a wider audience than ever before.

Trainer Nicky Henderson with point-to-point graduates Constitution Hill (left) and Jonbon

Moreover, Pugh and p2p.ie were instrumental in Irish point-to-point form becoming a permanent fixture in leading racing publications, sales catalogues and race cards across Britain and Ireland.

“I thought racecards were a big one,” says Pugh. “So when there’s racing at Leopardstown and Willie Mullins finishes second in the bumper and sees that the horse who beat him wasn’t a debutant but had won at Dromahane, it might help focus his mind.”

In summarising the chain of events that shaped the current point-to-point landscape, Pugh is keen to stress just how big a part serendipity played, saying: “So at its core the Flat went world-wide, foot-and-mouth created the opportunity, p2p.ie was doing its thing and select sales were bringing the horses to market, so people who already had an opinion now had more of an ‘in’.

“There was no joined-up thinking though, I wasn’t a visionary any more than the fella who put the autumn season in to help catch up from foot-and-mouth. It’s just that a lot of things happened in the world that all bounced in the favour of point-to-pointing.”

WHILE THE IRISH point-to-point industry quickly regained its momentum after a COVID-enforced shutdown, a new existential threat loomed over the sector as 2021 neared its end. A number of insurance providers left the equine market after some multi-million Euro payouts, and with Brexit red tape compounding the situation, the hunts, who run the point-to-points, were unable to obtain the necessary cover to host race meetings.

However, after much heavy lifting behind the scenes, including from politicians who raised the plight of the point-to-point community in the Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, a deal was brokered that sees point-to-points covered for a €1,250 premium.

The 2022 Cheltenham Festival Sale top lot: by Pour Moi the winning four-year-old filly is out of a half-sister to Don Cossack and was sold by Pat Doyle's Suirview Stables to Henry de Bromhead for £370,000. She is called Kudasheva, watch out for the name!

“A lot of work was done by a lot of people who pulled together a complex enough package that allowed the point-to-pointing to continue,” says Pugh. “It’s now on the hunts to stump up and pay this amount of money. It’s a leap but I hope the hunting community is able to stomach that going forward, and that we as an industry are able to support that as and when we’re needed.

“We hope that’s behind us and there’s no more bumps on that road. If there’s demand for racehorses, and we’ve seen during the pandemic that luxury items are sought after, then point-to-pointing has a good chance of providing what the market needs.

“I’m not optimistic and many times over the last seven years I’ve seen horses and sales hitting levels where I’ve thought ‘woah, I’m not sure it can get bigger than this’ but it’s always gone up another level.”

Pugh says the thing most likely to change the dynamic in Irish point-to-points is the British point-to-point, which has already produced the likes of the Queen Mother Champion Chase (G1) winner Energumene and Sky Pirate, as UK trainers begin to mirror the Irish model.

“There are some excellent handlers and some wonderful racecourses in Britain that we’d be jealous of over here,” he says.

“And there’s no logic that dictates that if Faugheen or Honeysuckle ran around Chaddesley Corbett or Barbury Castle that they would be any better or any worse.

“Those horses are going to emerge and I’m almost seeing now what we were seeing in 2005 in Ireland – two, three or four good winners appearing every Saturday. I don’t see that as competition for Ireland though, I think that keeps the brand of point-topointing strong.”

A rich seam for Ballycrystal Stables

THE LEADING POINT-TO-POINT HANDLERS, names such as Colin Bowe, Donnchadh Doyle and Denis Murphy are firmly established as powerful figures in the NH marketplace. Not only are they selling high-class talents for six-figure sums on a regular basis, their business model dictates that they are also significant investors in the unbroken store horse market. But there is another generation of trainers coming on stream, too, plenty of whom are proving equally adept at turning base metal into solid point-topointing gold.

One such trainer is the 38-year-old Matthew Flynn O’Connor, who operates out of Ballycrystal Stables in the point-to-point heartland of Wexford.

O’Connor, who grew up immersed in ponies and hunting, first dipped his toe into the pointto-point world with an interest in horses trained by Monbeg Stables’ Sean and Donnchadh Doyle, but says he always had ambitions of having his own operation in time. The commercial realities of training racehorses, which have been brought into sharp relief by the disparity between prices at the sales and returns on the racecourse, made the point-to-point model more appealing than racing under Rules, O’Connor says.

“We always wanted to do our own thing and we were either going to buy them to race them on the track or we were going to go down the selling route and try to produce good young horses who can go on for other trainers,” he says. “You can only do one or the other and it’s a very expensive game either way.

“If you’re buying expensive stores and deciding to keep a few to go on with, you have to be operating at the top end so they pay their way.

"So we decided we wanted to go the other way and treat it as a business and buy them as two- and three-year-olds and produce them as four-year-olds.”

O’Connor, who started the current campaign with 45 pointers, says he spent time with the Doyles as well as Colin Bowe before embarking on his own training career. He has clearly learned plenty from those past masters having enjoyed some noteworthy early successes.

On the track his talents have been advertised by Sporting John, whom O’Connor saddled to win a Borris House maiden before a £160,000 transfer to JP McManus and Philip Hobbs, for whom he landed the Grade 1 Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase.

“The Grade 1 horses don’t come along too often so we’re absolutely delighted with Sporting John. We never thought we’d have such a good horse so early on.”

Such results have given buyers confidence in the Ballycrystal brand – at last year’s Tattersalls Cheltenham December Sale, O’Connor sold not one but two lots for north of £300,000.

LEADING THE WAY was the wildly impressive Lingstown winner Deeply Superficial, who went to Gordon Elliott and Aidan O’Ryan for a salestopping £385,000, while earlier in the session Tom Malone and Paul Nicholls combined at £305,000 for Stay Away Fay, another debut winner at Lingstown.

This pair perfectly illustrate the rewards on offer for trainers who buy smartly and prepare their horses with skill – the pair cost a combined £65,000 at the store sales, but generated a windfall of £690,000!

“We had a very good day at Cheltenham,” says O’Connor, modestly. “I’ve had luck before as I owned a horse with Donnchadh Doyle called Classic Getaway, who made a lot of money [£570,000] at Yorton. But, having gone out under my own name, we never dreamed we’d be topping a Cheltenham sale so early on.

“The two horses are pretty special though, and based on the reports I’ve heard on Deeply Superficial. I think we could hear a good bit more about her.”

While examples such as Deeply Superficial may make the game look straightforward, O’Connor says trainers have their share of pressure to deal with, particularly when it comes to going toe-totoe with the established names at the store sales.

“Don’t get me wrong, when they win like Deeply Superficial you are going over to the sales with your chest out and you’re looking for it all,” he says. “But, at the same time you have to get there, get through the vets and there’s plenty of pressure, too. You also have to get the trainers’ trust so they can have confidence when you’re telling them this is the horse they want, especially when they cost plenty of money. But, when you’re in the ring and the price starts to get going, it becomes a bit more enjoyable!

“Believe it or not there’s probably more stress during the weeks when you’re buying these horses than when you’re getting them over the line.

“You’re investing an awful lot of money and you only get one chance to buy them. Everything has to be right, their conformation has to be right, they need to be good movers, and they want to have a bit of pedigree... but the more of that they have, the more expensive they become!”

He continues: “If you get a horse going into the ring who ticks all the boxes, they become nearly impossible to buy because it’s at such a high level now. The likes of Donnchadh Doyle, Colin Bowe and Pat Doyle, they’re having plenty of winners and have the money to back them up and can afford to buy those expensive ones.

“When you’re starting off it’s hard to stand up there and give fifty grand for one when all you’re getting is a horse you don’t know much about and a head collar!

“There’s a lot of pressure when you’re trying to buy the right one. But it’s something we thought we’d go at positively because if you win your pointto-point, go back to the sales, tick all the boxes and it happens on the day, then you do get well paid.”