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.