WHEN IS A CHAMPIONSHIP NOT A CHAMPIONSHIP - A STUDY, 1967 to 2001

As one of thousands of confirmed hunters’ chase and point-to-point enthusiasts, the Racing Post Weekender is a permanent fixture in my weekly shopping basket between December and June. Whilst the results listed in the pull-out on the amateur sport are available in varying formats elsewhere, the rump of the editorial content is not; and both the human interest stories behind certain runners and riders, plus those of rules and programme changes, are given the fine toothcomb treatment by me each week.

One article from last week’s Weekender served as a reminder that the one thing that all racing writers, pundits and enthusiasts have in common is that they each have their own hobby-horse subject or subjects, which are then maintained and defended with a zeal arguably disproportionate to all else.

In the case of one or two of my colleagues on Betfair Radio, the subject guaranteed to elicit the strongest reaction is the provision to the media of timely and accurate changes to a racecourse’s conditions (e.g. the moving in or out of running rails). My equivalents would be the introduction of hurdle races over a genuine marathon trip, i.e. beyond the current longest of 3m3.5f, and a recognised championship – with prizes - for permit-holders as an acknowledgement of their longstanding historical significance to and continued support of the sport of National Hunt racing. For Carl Evans, the Racing Post’s hunters’ chase and point-to-point expert and writer of the informative and engaging "Pointing Diary" in the Weekender each week, the recording of the 2001 pointing season appears to be a perennial bugbear.

That season was, of course, blighted by the return to the British Isles of foot and mouth disease and an instant cessation of all racing in mid-February. Whilst Rules action returned to those courses suitably detached from the movement of potentially affected livestock shortly after (e.g. Musselburgh, Haydock, Huntingdon and the London courses), the intrinsically rural, and in many cases farm-based point-to-point tracks, never really had any live prospect of a resumption; and so it came to pass that the pointing season ended abruptly after the Brocklesby Park and Parham meetings on February 24th, the seventh weekend of the season, with only 218 races out of a likely programme of around 1400 having taken place.

Mr Evans’ contention is that the severely truncated nature of pointing in 2001 should prevent that season from being regarded as one in which any riders, horses, etc. are classed as “champions”, even for historical purposes. Weatherbys in general, and Mackenzie and Harris’ Hunter Chasers and Point-to-Pointers annual in particular, is cited as perpetuating the idea that what racing did take place that year was sufficient to constitute a proper season; and that the recording of Polly Gundry as champion woman with six wins, and of messrs Dunsdon, Gordon and Jefford as the men’s joint champions with five apiece, is entirely acceptable.

Whilst broadly sympathetic to Mr Evans’ opinion, and whilst acknowledging, as he did, that a number of pointing regions were unable to host a single meeting on account of first the weather and then foot and mouth, I have little hesitation in agreeing with Weatherby’s judgment on this occasion.

2001 was not the first year in many people’s living memory to be broadsided by an epidemic of the disease, of course. November 28th 1967 saw a Ministry of Agriculture-driven ban imposed on all horse racing, one which held across the entire country for two months and in some areas until early the following summer. There were no point-to-point fixtures scheduled for the first few weeks of that imposition anyway, but losses thereafter there certainly were, albeit admittedly not on the same scale as over 30 years later.

A glance at the roll-call of previous champions in the Annual reveals one present and correct for both gentlemen’s and ladies’ championships in 1968, and therein lies the point – the precedent already exists for a championship to be counted as a championship, however foreshortened or truncated by circumstances beyond anyone’s control.

The nature of that interruption to the season ought not make any difference, either. A glance further up the table reveals that the 1963 season was still regarded as valid enough to warrant the declaration of Major Guy Cunard and Sally Rimell as the winners of their respective championships, despite that year’s savage winter more or less wiping out all action until part-way into March.

The aforementioned fact that some areas of the country saw no pointing action whatsoever in 2001, to the detriment of most of the riders and certainly all of the horses and trainers based in these areas, is not disputed. That, however, is just the way it is. The composition and geography of certain places will always leave them more at risk of having their racing way of life compromised than others, be that by susceptibility to epidemics or extremes of weather.

A not insubstantial chunk of the summer jumping programme was lost to the terrible floods last year, both of these events being based largely in the Midlands; but it would set an unwise precedent to suggest that the inability of a large number of the Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire trainers to train or send out runners during that period rendered the championship too loaded against them to count as credible.

In short, were there ample precedent of shortened point-to-point championships not being counted as championships, then I would have no hesitation in agreeing with Carl Evans on this occasion, but whilst it may exist I am yet to see it.


(As an aside, I would also counter the assertion made in the same article that, “no-one claims Esha Ness won the void 1993 Grand National”. On the contrary.

Those that did complete the course did so having raced in earnest throughout, right down to fighting out a finish, from which Esha Ness emerged victorious in a time 12.6 seconds faster than the Racing Post standard fo the course and distance. The paper’s comments in running for him, “held up in touch, headway to join leaders last, shaken up to lead flat, stayed on well, finished first”, don’t really read like those of a horse only going through the motions rather than racing for real, either.

As such, and notwithstanding the depleted field following the multiple pullings-up after the first circuit (which still left 19 going out for a second time, far more than in the undisputedly legitimate 2001 renewal), the race still stands on its own merits as an indication that Esha Ness, Cahervillahow, On The Other Hand, etc. genuinely stayed a marathon trip, however much they did or did not run over similar thereafter).