CELEBRATING HARRIET AND STAN, AND REMEMBERING JONATHAN

The opening fixture of the jumps season for the past eleven seasons (COVID year excepted), and since 2017 programmed six days after Sandown’s curtain-closer in order to hammer home that point, Cheltenham's hunter chase evening - which rolled around again last Friday - presents jumps racing’s HQ the way I like it most.  Usually pleasant spring weather, a tolerable crowd size, and (for the last ten runnings, and counting) the peerless Martin Harris commentating.

 

Only the addition of a hunter chase over the cross-country fences to the evening could improve the format of the fixture for me, it bearing at least some comparison with the mixture of obstacles these competitors are assumed to be encountering on a day’s hunting.  The course husbandry and additional cost implications of sloshing however many thousands of litres of water over it in the event of as dry a spring as this year’s are, of course, well understood. 

 

Being the season opener does mean that the winning connections of the first race, the two-miler, have that fleeting honour of heading the national jockey and trainer titles.  

 

And I quite like that; building as it does at once, however gently, the narrative of a title race which ultimately culminates in a Nicholls, Henderson or (latterly) Willie Mullins emerging on top, well over three million quid to the good, but which starts off with a much smaller-time operator collecting a prize less than a millionth of that size.

 

Not that any of those three trainers named is generally given to providing such characterful or colourful copy as Joseph O’Shea, live contender already for the post-race interview of the year (c.f. Aintree) and flying out of the traps for the 2025-26 campaign here with the James King-partnered Barton Snow.

 

Mark this proving of the Snow Sky gelding’s effectiveness around a big course as a very welcome bonus, considering his actual longstanding target of the Restricted Final at Stratford, as already mentioned on this blog following his Askham Bryan success in February.  He's going to line up in that contest horribly overqualified for the job at hand, a fact hopefully not reflected in too disagreeable an imposte of win penalties.

 

If Barton Snow entered Friday evening’s fixture needing to prove his aptitude over a galloping Rules chase track, Crawter lined up for the erstwhile Intermediate Final thirty-five minutes later untried over any sort of Rules chase course whatsoever – and with an offputting propensity to jump right even in victory between the flags to factor in as well.

 

Those not dissuaded from backing Harriet Waight’s six-year-old on either or both counts found themselves generously rewarded to the tune of at least 11-1, with many of “those” likely comprising pointing regulars more than familiar with Waight’s 27 pointing and hunter chase wins at a near 28% strike-rate, all gained from just eight horses – with never more than two campaigned at the same time - over fifteen years.  The acme of making a little go a long way.

 

The Enford handler had first entered my consciousness when, as Harriet Besent, saddling the then still unregistered Impact Area to win the Royal Artillery Members’ race at neighbouring Larkhill under Louis Muspratt ten years ago, dispatching the very much registered stablemate Deimne by 30l.  

 

Quickly recognised as something better than a “(U)” horse (as pointing form guides suffix them), the grey would collect another five points – including the Coronation Cup - and a pair of hunter chases inside the following fifteen months and take in Cheltenham twice.  His status as his handler’s best and most prolific horse ever appears less secure now than it did following Crawter's highly productive 2024-25, however.

 

If few begrudged Waight those initial successes with her own family’s horses back then, fewer still ought to mind her more recent wins – of which Crawter’s at Cheltenham was merely the latest - with animals trained for Stan Rawlins, course and estate manager of the Larkhill point-to-point track for getting on for four decades now. 

 

There’s a case to say Stan has one of the hardest tasks of any course manager in racing, professional or amateur, considering the sheer size of the twelve-fence Wiltshire circuit and a chalk-based composition and exposed location that conspires utterly against providing ground with any cut in anything other than a Biblically wet season. 

 

No rain?  No problem.  Only the frosted-off Racing Club fixture has prevented Larkhill from once again honouring its full complement of fixtures this term on ground often unarguably fast, but equally unarguably perfectly safe, expertly rolled and topped – no mean feat when officials at four other generally more favourably situated meetings elsewhere were forced to admit defeat against the enduring dry spell, and at least one other should have.

 

For that alone, pointing owes Stan a sizeable thank you, and his racehorses a few more days and evenings in the sun.

 

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From those very much still with us, to one who sadly is no more.  

 

The most emotional part of hunter chase evening for many, whether pointing diehards or part of the Racing TV family, or both, would have been the dedicating of the fourth race (over the full Cheltenham Festival Challenge Cup C&D) to the late Jonathan Neesom.  

 

Accepting, of course, that this gesture, along with the touching tribute in the racecard and all of those offered at the time of his passing last June, might have elicited a snort of “a load of old bollocks” from the man himself.

 

Obituaries were already plentiful enough at the time not to require reprising at this juncture, and I additionally make no pretence or assumption of having meant the first thing to Jonathan personally.  Nevertheless, Friday evening’s race evoked some memories of him, both direct and indirect.

 

Along with the aforementioned Martin’s and Iain Mackenzie’s, some of Jonathan’s brutally honest and waspish analyses, be they with a microphone in hand or committed to print, were the ones that others of us would have sold our grandmothers to be able to pull off so confidently.  

 

What wouldn’t we have given to come up with the notion of a race so slow that it could have been timed with a calendar, or else of a hapless chasing debutant taking to fences like a duck to treacle.

 

A high watermark in his writing of close-ups for the Racing Post was surely reached in the 2008 running of Sandown’s Grand Military Gold Cup, when the performance of the Reverend Simon Beveridge’s mount yielded a comment to the effect of, "Took demonic hold, devilishly interfered with and cannoned into".  The first bit of that comment sadly appears to have disappeared in the interim. 

 

I suspect it was a brave sub-editor who considered shortening or sanitising Jonathan’s work without knowing exactly what they were doing.  My mind immediately goes back to the summer of my tenure at the Sportsman newspaper in 2006, and to a rank bad, big-field Worcester staying handicap chase of the sort that gives fuel to the fire of summer jumping’s detractors on quality grounds.  

 

Doing the Sportsman’s equivalent of the Spotlighting verdict for the race, I’d had my damning of the line-up as “superannuated” scratched out by a nervous locum editor.  Over at the Post, they’d let Jonathan keep the no less complimentary “antediluvian” in his.

 

My recollections of Jonathan are not solely of the withering or sarcastic nature, however.  Far from it; what he liked, he very much liked.  

 

A crossing of paths in March 2010 took us both to Kingston Blount point-to-point (he racereading for the Loose-Leaf and me just crossing off another new course), and his regard for the outstanding winning ride that the then still amateur Adam Wedge gave a most ungenerous partner in The Camerengo came through as much in our brief exchange after as in print the following Friday.

 

That relatively early championing of the future multiple Grade 1-winning rider endured into his professional career.  Check out the Racing Post archive replay of the Wedge-partnered Oursininlaw’s Cartmel novice hurdle success of just a few months later, the recording left running long enough after the race to include genuine praise of a young rider going places.

 

In truth, I saw Jonathan around less over the last ten to twelve years, as I gradually retreated from all on-course Rules work and concentrated more on pointing in the northern half of the country. But one of my very final in-person encounters with him came in the parade ring at Market Rasen in November 2013, with he presumably between races for Racing UK and me doing spotting for Timeform Radio, and it neatly encapsulated so many sides of him.

 

“Hello, Jonathan, haven’t spoken for ages”, I gormlessly offered.

 

“Yes”, he offered witheringly, and looking slowly up from his notes, “and I think that was rather for the best, don't you?"

 

Highly pleased that I'd unwittingly set him up a half volley he could smash out of the park (or perhaps, considering his beloved Plymouth Argyle, bury in the top corner) for his own amusement , he then mellowed somewhat and we had a bit of a chat about what we'd liked about the day's action - principally something called Tiger Roll winning the juvenile hurdle - and what we hadn't.  

 

Never one to pull his punches regardless of the prevailing scenario, he was especially critical of the unkempt appearance of a runner from Market Rasen's own Michael Chapman, determinedly making the point that something trained in almost literally the field adjoining the racecourse probably ought not be brought to the track looking like it had just come out of that field.

 

Not wishing to push my luck overly with superfluous dips into nostalgia, I nevertheless briefly recalled the Pytchley point-to-point at Guilsborough that spring which I’d seen Jonathan enjoying, and in particular how the favourites had gone through the card, including typically strongly supported Don Cantillon newcomers in the final two races (both partnered by Nico de Boinville two months away from the end of his amateur career).

 

“That was a bloodbath”, Jonathan remembered fondly, to which I suggested we ought to have built the bookies a roof that day, so they could all have thrown themselves off it.

 

I’m glad we left it there, Jonathan laughing heartily at the suggestion and me for once knowing when not to try to top it.

 

I hope he borrowed that line on air in another scenario one day. 

 

And I hope that wherever he was watching it from, he enjoyed his memorial race on Friday evening more than he’d have let on.

 

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WITH BLUESCAPE, CHUBB IS KIMBLE'S KING OF THE CASTLE

On my first covering Kimble’s Easter meeting in 2010 (when still badged as Vale of Aylesbury with Garth & South Berks), this splendid old line was still only the fourth oldest active pointing course of all of those in operation.

By the time I revisited it in 2019, it was the second oldest.

Another six years on, and this 113-year-old course is now the undisputed doyen of those that survive, such has been the sport’s continued retrenchment in the interim.

Nothing should be taken for granted nowadays, therefore, not when even places always previously assumed deathless such as Upton-on-Severn and Balcormo Mains resolve to the sound of pounding hooves no longer.

Nevertheless, Kimble has more in its favour than most where its continued survival is concerned – an enormous catchment area for potential racegoers from Oxford to north and west London, Buckingham to Bracknell, and all points in between; no threat to the racing line of any active or proposed building work (the new Arabella Park housing estate off the Kimblewick Road approach to the course amounts to little); a meeting executive prepared to guard the Easter Saturday racing date like treasure (much like their counterparts at the North Staffordshire and Woodland Pytchley); and a clerk of the course in former pointing rider Graham Tawell forever prepared to put in a herculean shift to guarantee a fine racing surface even in the most trying of circumstances.

And trying those circumstances had surely been in the run-up to the meeting on Easter Saturday just past, the prevailing drying conditions and (perceptibly on raceday itself) a brisk wind counteracting the best efforts of three bowsers’ worth of constant watering, and scotching hopes of producing allover good ground.

Even so, that sustained effort had removed all spite from a surface unarguably on the fast side in places, but at the same time both unequivocally safe and a credit to all concerned.

Despite a respectable turnout for the pony races preceding the pointing action, there must have been worries that Tawell and team’s labours would go unrewarded when the opening veteran horse conditions race failed to attract a single runner from the entry of eleven.

As a lover of those occasional wonderful horses able to defy anno domini well beyond the norm, I naturally harboured disappointment at not having got to see 17-year-old Southfield Theatre in action. Equally naturally, however, one suspects that disappointment paled next to that of those with a fair bit more riding on the fixture not descending into the levels of ignominy suffered by Tabley or Garthorpe in recent weeks than I.

(Whether they would have found any comfort in the fact that the more high-profile Lady Dudley Cup meeting at Chaddesley Corbett would also need to void a race on its own undercard an hour later is moot).

A seven-strong turnout for the following maiden (from an entry of just nine) served as the perfect response - a vote of confidence in the racing surface, and a line-up not short of animals representing respected and longstanding owners, from the Hemmings estate to Charles Dixey to eventual winning owner Chubb Castle.

It’s only weeks shy of two decades since erstwhile permit-holder Castle last collected a race under Rules, homebred Monty Be Quick tiptoeing past hapless rivals to register a complete boilover in a Towcester maiden chase in May 2005.

There have been two successes for Castle between the flags with other homebreds (each trained by Bradley Gibbs) these past couple of months alone, however; cult pointing hero Doctor Kingsley’s niece Ask Elli recording a fitting success in late February over the Kingston Blount line that Castle himself had co-designed 44 years prior, followed by Bluescape defying her Flat pedigree in compiling an assured round of jumping under first-time winning rider Harry O’Dwyer this afternoon.

No further contest on the day matched this one for numbers, and few threatened to, but a walkover or worse was avoided in each; and that the day’s fastest time was recorded in the two-runner Restricted tells no lie about how uncharacteristically, pleasingly strongly run a race that was by the standards of most matches.

It was a proper case of no quarter asked, none given, then, and with the short-priced favourite’s successful crossing of the final fence, there came additionally a perfect opportunity for commentator and professional linguist Mike Crolla to afford himself a nice bon mot – “Elle Est Beau… elle est bon”.

Keeping a crowd with a greater share of casual, once-a-year attendees entertained and informed throughout is a job in itself, all the more so when there are comparatively few horses to have to discuss. Chapeau, therefore, to Mike, whose talents were of course already widely known and appreciated in the South Midlands Area before now (q.v. the Lord Ashton of Hyde gig at Cocklebarrow, plus Siddington and Mollington).

Hats off also to Lawney Hill, who, increasingly consummate with a microphone in hand (a legacy perhaps of those fine Racing TV performances), put in a tireless shift in explaining race conditions, penalties, allowances and recent form clearly and accessibly to all present, and doubled up as post-race interviewer.

A double on the day for the Hills, courtesy of stablemates and apparent best buddies I K Brunel (beating a revitalised Samtara) and Soldier Unknown, appealed as ample reward for such services rendered, whilst giving rise also to the slightly surreal scenario of Lawney interviewing daughter-in-law rider Izzie subsequently.

FOR THE LOVE OF HELMSLEY, COME POINTING

Helmsley races, or the Sinnington point-to-point (whatever your preference) at Duncombe Park, Sunday, February 16th.  Two days after Valentine’s Day this year, and if a spirit of love wasn’t all pervading, at least it wasn’t in entirely short supply.

With love, however, must also come loss.  News of Irish pointing graduate and Rules star in the making Michael O'Sullivan's tragic passing, ten days after taking a fall at Thurles, had filtered through the wires on raceday morning.  

The wearing of black armbands in tribute was honoured by far more jockeys than not, the observing of a minute's silence by racegoers likewise.  Given the unavoidably short notice, this was a sterling and heartfelt effort from those in attendance, with the passing of Keagan Kirkby closer to home just a year and a fortnight earlier unlikely to have been far from many minds. 

Helmsley itself loves pointing.  It must do – it’s happily tolerated the invasion of its pretty market square by horseboxes and punters for pretty much exactly fifty years now.  Hosted at Oswaldkirk before that course’s closure compelled it to a few nomadic years around the likes of Whitwell-on-the-Hill and Charm Park, the Sinnington landed at Duncombe Park, stately backdrop and all, on March 15th 1975 and has had no cause to leave since.  Its status as the fourth oldest surviving track in the area is nothing to take for granted.

Horsemen and women generally love Duncombe Park sufficiently to keep the initial entry healthy year in, year out, and here again a low-100s intake translated into 66 runners on the day, 67 if a kick-induced withdrawal before one race is still counted.  Nobody should, of course, get carried away considering what numbers any popular Yorkshire point could return a generation ago, but with eight races all told and six offering places on third this genuinely felt like a hitherto stuttering local season was finally underway.

Mixed Open scorer Camdonian also loves Duncombe Park.  Then again, Camdonian loves most places he’s been sent pointing thus far, the claiming this time of two major scalps in Go Go Geronimo (thus exacting revenge for Charm Park last May) and Summerville Boy taking his tally between the flags to seven wins from nine and augmenting a Conditions level success here in 2024.  Not bad for a mid-110s maiden hurdler for Dan Skelton previously.

Days like this stave off the lure of retirement just that little bit longer for investment banker and bona fide Corinthian Christy Furness; and considering Camdonian is a better animal now than that which popped round safely enough under him for fourth in the Intermediate Final at Cheltenham in 2023, one would assume plans work towards another (final?) visit to jumps HQ in the spring, Monbeg Chit Chat’s victory there in 2021 ripe for supplementing.

Camdonian’s current handler Jack Teal probably loves technology.  Or more specifically, the iPad camera at the disposal of the Duncombe Park judges which allowed them to discern and award quite possibly the first nose verdict in the history of a Yorkshire point (write in if you know different), and to do so in the favour of Teal’s generously priced newcomer Appy Chappy, partnered by sister Lois, in the bumper.  

Mere days before Teal’s Brocklesby Park winner Mooserwirt would be knocked down to Dan Astbury at the Tattersalls Cheltenham February event, the value of a number one next to the name of potentially the next cab off the rank sales-wise (a half-brother to Veterans’ race third Zhiguli, entirely coincidentally) won’t have been lost on those concerned.

For those inclined to blind back Teal family newcomers (only me?) in Maidens or pointing Flat races, meanwhile, it added another ten points to a credit column never fully depleted all these years since Jack booted home his mother’s 50-1 debutant Burtredgipandgump at this very venue in 2014.

Dale Peters evidently loves Yorkshire, too.  And, it’s probably not unreasonable to suggest, Yorkshire loves him back.  A double with two inmates that haven’t been easy in their respective ways once again laid bare his considerable training skills for all to see.

Possibly the animal that would appear were you to ask Google Gemini to represent triumph of perseverance in horse form, Wereinthistogether’s facile success in the Restricted came on just a second start since tipping up on debut all of 39 months prior and 22 since breaking his maiden.  A bill of health clean enough for long enough to permit a sequence of runs from here on is the least horse and connections deserve.

Line Em Up, meanwhile, had gone from upsides to stopping to nil on a slightly troubling debut the previous spring, and if merely proving to be the least remote dot on the horizon when Ideal du Tabert battered everyone at Sheriff Hutton last month, here in victory in one leg of the split Maiden was the most irrefutable proof that Peters has successfully plugged whatever hole the son of Balko may or may not have had in him.

It’s worth reiterating the point that Peters doesn’t come up north in search of soft races.  Far from it; there are plenty of those to aim at closer to a Sawtry base better placed to mop up in East Anglia and the Midlands.  Nobler instead to test himself, and some of his good animals, against the best that Yorkshire and environs have to offer, and this is recognised and respected locally.

Twelve Yorkshire pointing winners for the rider-trainer in the past eight years, all shared around competitive fixtures at Sheriff Hutton, Duncombe Park and Charm Park, and you can be sure there’ll have been some vicarious pleasure up here in the achievements of Grade 1 novice hurdle second Miami Magic and Catterick standing dish Omar Maretti subsequent to their bountiful days between the local flags.

Whether it’s realistic to expect Jump On Board to achieve anything similar in points - let alone transcend them - is questionable, the nephew of Prix du President de la Republique second Enfant Roi having failed seven times in Ireland despite Derek O’Connor’s assistance more often than not, and trailing home last of seven finishers behind the aforementioned Line Em Up on this British debut, one and a half fences behind the sixth.

The smiles in the unsaddling area afterwards told you what this meant to first-time pointing rider Jet Williams Wynn, however.  A senior chartered surveyor and sometime eventer, with competitions at two defunct pointing venues in Weston Park and Upper Sapey on her portfolio, Jet sat up with the pace for a mile, set out her stall for a safe completion thereafter, and achieved just that.

Even in the prevailing climate where fewer such exist, it’s worth finishing on the thought that there are still people such as Jet willing to have a go at point riding… purely for the love of it.

THE PERFECT START TO SUMMERVILLE'S AUTUMN YEARS

York & Ainsty and West of Yore point-to-point at Askham Bryan College, February 2nd.  And proof again, were ever it needed, that whilst form is temporary class is permanent.  

A month shy of the seventh anniversary of his Supreme Novices' Hurdle success at the Cheltenham Festival, Summerville Boy demonstrated that all working parts are still very much functioning en route to a comfortable Mens Open success on his first foray between the flags.

It's fair to suggest that racing for a couple of hundred quid around a tiny course hard up against the A64 won't have figured anywhere on his career plan - not even as recently as last season, when still placing in Graded staying hurdles company in Ireland.  It's also fair to suggest the mere presence of one with such recent back class lining up at this level can leave the purists banging their heads against the wall.

At thirteen years of age, however, and following defeats in his last eleven tilts at Listed or higher company, the son of Sandmason had more than earned his right to enjoy a somewhat easier assignment.  

Rather like the previous most recent former Festival winner I'd seen between the flags, My Way De Solzen at Tabley back in 2013, Summerville Boy - reportedly a kind, gentle friend to Henry de Bromhead during some dark times previously - still exudes an aura of quality, and is neither humiliating himself, nor being humiliated, in his new vocation.  

Not the first former Roger Brookhouse-owned top-notcher to enter the care of Charles Clark (Black Op did likewise), a suitably kindly, light pointing itinerary based around Opens and - possibly - the Holderness Members at Dalton Park isn't hard to foresee.

Incidentally, whilst the 5-2 about Ideal Du Tabert at Sheriff Hutton eight days ago might take some beating for betting rick of the season, anyone trusting in the proven enduring ability of Summerville Boy over the recency bias of Paul Marvel's Knightwick conditions success will have been very, very happy indeed to avail themselves of the 11-8 about the former.

Paul Marvel's eclipsing at odds on comprised one plank of a frustrating afternoon for pointing's pre-eminent wallflower Joseph O'Shea, back with his name above the proverbial (or actual) door following a retirement even Status Quo would consider brief.  The minutiae of the backstory concerning his return have been sufficiently played out in (and in part deleted from) one corner of cyberspace already, and need concern only those involved.  

There was the solace for him of one winner, at least, and if Barton Snow isn't - by one owner's admission - the right physical specimen for the Cheltenham Intermediate Final, come later in May he might line up massively overqualified to land his other target of the Restricted Final around the appreciably more suitable Stratford.

O'Shea's trio comprised three of the nine runners from well outside of the hosting Yorkshire Area, a figure which between them accounted for almost a third of the final total of 30 runners.  A poor return, at first glance, considering Milborne St Andrew down in Dorset boasted runner after runner across a ten race marathon the same day; but actually riches indeed given an initial entry of just 52 (comprising 45 individual horses) and the competiton for some of the same animals from Garthorpe, which ultimately drew slightly fewer starters.

The wisdom of two fixtures not a million miles apart on the same day each featuring an Intermediate and no Restricted can be pondered over at leisure, likewise whether Askham Bryan's sometime propensity for variable grass cover serves as a deterrent for some connections (more fool them - today's surface was lush, full and the best I've ever seen in the course's eleven-season existence).

Even so, what to make of the fact that just the second fixture of the Yorkshire season drew such a small initial entry (evidently sufficiently above the threshold below which a meeting is not permitted to take place, but by how many?), and was grateful to long-distance travellers to prop it up?  

That Askham Bryan stands as the sole remaining short-runners' track in Yorkshire following Easingwold's demise just adds to the mystery (Hutton Rudby is sharp and quirky, but also a seven minutes-plus course granted any cut in the ground).  Connections of local horses which don't truly stay three miles ordinarily (and heaven knows they exist) should be targeting both fixtures here to the exclusion of almost anything else.

Such Yorkshire animals as did turn out didn't go unrewarded on the day.  Far from it; two fine local racing families helped themselves to the pair of Maidens.  Hollywood Harmon (a mare, so likely not named in tribute to NCIS mainstay Mark) got Alexander Wilson, son of highly popular Fawdington handler Cooper, off the mark for this term when finding the combination of a sharper 2m4f and drying ground transformative - ergo the previous point.  

Similar all-the-way tactics garnered success in the 3m equivalent for Titanium Bullet, Felix Foster (son of Jo, grandson of Peter) writing another entry in the family history with a first winner on his fourth senior ride. 

In the same week as two Welsh points later this term were cancelled, with organisers citing the dearth of horses certified for points in the principality (not even into the forties in total), the visibility of these new horses and riders for Yorkshire is at once both encouraging and nothing to take for granted.  

The hope has to be the well isn't already threatening to run dry a week into February.  The entries for the Duncombe Park fixture a fortnight hence will, one feels, prove highly informative.

BRINGING HOME THE SILVERWARE ON A DAY FREE OF FEAR

Thirteen days ago, a mixed round of jumping by Grangeclare Diego at Charm Park had culminated in Paddy Barlow's unseat five from home and, you'll recall, a mammoth delay whilst medical services attended to the unconscious jockey amid a hushed and concerned atmosphere.

Fast forward to today, and here we all are watching the same Grangeclare Diego swagger into the winner's enclosure at the Hurworth point-to-point at Hutton Rudby, having not touched a twig all the way round under the same Paddy Barlow.

A quite extraordinary example of pointing's perpetual gift for effecting turnrounds in fortunes, this; one mirrored further by Buster Valentine, on whom Paddy had won 35 minutes before his Charm Park spill, decking him 35 minutes after today's victory (rider thankfully unscathed this time).

Points of interest were not hard to find on a day when two-thirds of the horses that could have turned up thankfully did, and the rain that also could have turned up politely waited until the final race was concluded.

Isobel MacTaggart and Katriona Brown recorded first career riding successes, whilst John Dawson dug deep to secure the opener on Mount Mews as if the previous day's exertions at Cheltenham had taken nothing out of him.

The Hurworth qualified Sine Nomine was, to the best of my knowledge, nowhere to be seen. The magnificent cup she won, however, was. Yesterday's victory was very much one by, for, and to be enjoyed and shared with, Yorkshire pointing.

A final observation. In a chat with the excellent Mike Crolla between commentaries, we recalled that the 2020 renewal of this fixture had fallen just three days before the entire country was placed in lockdown (indeed, this was my first return visit since).

The atmosphere that day had been tangibly shot through with a sense of sadness, uncertainty and - if we're all honest about it - fear of a kind I'd never sensed on a racetrack before, and perhaps never will again.

That it has been possible to renew my acquaintance with Skutterskelfe Park liberated from any such foreboding has given me more pleasure today than I am perhaps able to convey adequately here. May we all live long before our sport experiences anything similar or the same once more.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEENS, AND WHAT THANKFULLY WEREN'T

If anyone were still uncertain as to why some pointing fixtures in this part of the world try to raise skiploads of money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service every year, the rapid scrambling of its helicopter to aid the stricken Paddy Barlow at this afternoon's Yorkshire Area Jockeys point-to-point fixture at Charm Park ought to have put the matter beyond doubt.

With the tragic recent passing of Keagan Kirkby at Charing still fresh in the mind, anyone could have been forgiven as the minutes ticked by for fearing serious injury had befallen Paddy following his unseating from Grangeclare Diego in the Restricted. The news this evening, mercifully, is broadly positive.

Just thirty-five minutes earlier Paddy had enjoyed victory aboard the Milburns' new recruit Buster Valentine in the Mens Open. Only an hour before that, William Brown had somehow escaped unscathed from a horror incident in which he'd been dragged over 100 yards along the ground, foot still trapped in stirrup.

Such are the vacillations of fate in a sport we all love but need ultimately concede will forever remain untameable, all safety measures notwithstanding.

The afternoon's dramas inevitably resulted in delays, and the concluding contest was run under a sky containing more deep purple than the heavy metal racks at [insert name of surviving high street music store here].

It could have been run at 2am with headlights mounted on the horses for all connections of Duke Account minded, however, the brave homebred emerging on top in a four-way go to add an Intermediate to previous gains for stalwart local owner Charles Brader and family.

(Whether critical to the outcome or not, the jockey on runner-up Fire In Her Eyes may appreciate another go at riding the final 20 yards or so. No more need be said).

A word at this point for Charlotte Russell, one of Charles Brader's daughters, the brains and public face of Go Racing in Yorkshire's many highly effective marketing campaigns under Rules, and - as was again evident at Charm Park today - the absolute gold standard by which all point-to-point meeting announcers should be judged. Only sometime Midlands counterpart Felicity Vero has come close in recent years.

Another Charlotte caught up with on a visit back up north was Charlotte Fuller, wife of Richard (also present) and mother of top jockey Page (elsewhere). Cue much reminiscing over the much-missed Hackwood Park, where I more or less had a residency as racereader from 2007-11 and where the curation of an excellent racing surface often met with less reward in terms of runners than was strictly fair.

The Fullers were also happy to provide an update on their former mainstay Moscow Blaze, recipient of a retirement rather less eventful than a racing career punctuated by, among many incidents, a fractured skull and an adder bite which temporarily turned one leg to mush. I'm not sure what gods racehorses have to upset to meet with such mishap, but Moscow evidently narked them all.

NOTHING TO FRET ABOUT AS PETER LANDS A (W)RIGHT TOUCH

Given the sea fret that started (and indeed bookended) today in Scarborough, the last thing I was expecting at the Derwent point-to-point at Charm Park this afternoon was sunburn. And yet... and yet...

If nothing about the forecast presaged such a warm, pleasant day, then the reports of the work gone in to repair the course since the last raceday here made the immaculate surface slightly less of a surprise, if no less appreciated. The only occasion I've seen better anywhere all season was... here, in March.

In no time, Charm Park has reclaimed its right to be regarded as an exemplar pointing venue, its stock rising again dramatically just as that of the likes of, say, Thorpe Lodge and Dingley takes a bit of a dip. A huge well done to all concerned.

A total of 33 runners on the day might well have been better had more connections understood whether their horses were actually eligible for the Northern Novice Championship; it's likely a goodly number were.

The need to make this clear enough to avoid a repeat of today's two-runner renewal - Grenadine Save and Flashy Kate additionally hailing from the South Midlands and East Anglia respectively rather than locally - is already acknowledged by the one Point-to-Point Racing Company staffer I spoke to this evening.

Elsewhere on the card, it was one of those days to give those remaining owner-trainers sufficient encouragement to stick with the sport - plenty haven't.

Iana Stoyantcheva may have decided raceriding wasn't for her a mile into her first ride aboard Darius Des Sources at Dalton Park, but her fine grey has got her into the winner's enclosure twice now even so, victory today despite a 10lb penalty suggesting he may be good enough to bridge the class gap if campaigned in Opens next term.

Thomas Labeille *is* still owner-trainer-ridden, and although ostensibly exposed after a season taking in everything from Maidens to Opens, Leah Cooper's charge is at his most compelling at the 2m4f trip he skated home over today - a detail not lost on visiting Point-to-Point Authority supremo Peter Wright.

Considering the easy manner, determination and courtesy with which he has addressed all stakeholders' concerns about pointing these past few years, and navigated the sport through the treacherous waters of two lockdown-enforced interruptions with far less damage incurred than anyone had the right to expect, I doubt too many people will have begrudged Peter if he availed himself of some of the 11-1 to be had in places.

And with that, both Yorkshire's and my own 2022-23 pointing campaign in all probability come to a close, five weeks before the end of the season but with nothing booked between now and then. It has, as nearly always (some will know I wouldn't want to relive 2012-3 in a hurry), been an absolute joy. Summer well, friends, and see you again soon.