The plug is pulled
Premature ending to point-to-point
AFTER A week of flip-flopping by the authorities, it was eventually decided on Friday to halt pointto-point meetings, and it looks highly likely now that the 20192020 programme has arrived at a premature conclusion as it seems probable no more meetings will be held by the traditional season’s end in early June.
It remains to be seen if the various championships will be decided by the tables as they are now, or if they will be declared void.
Wexford trainers and riders dominate the current standings.
Two meetings were held behind closed doors the weekend before last and it seemed as if this policy would continue, in tandem with the strict rules and protocols operating on race tracks.
However, on Friday the stewards of the Irish National Hunt steeplechase committee pulled the plug on P2P meetings.
They said that point-to-point meetings ‘differ in many respects from racing on the track, not least in terms of the ability to enforce a “behind closed doors” policy’ and it might not be ‘practicable in all respects to adhere to the strict social distancing protocols required, as will be enforced for all fixtures being staged at racecourses’.
In the interests of completeness, here are brief details of what are likely to be the final two meetings of the season held on Sunday, March 15.
At Ballyarthur near Fermoy, Barry O’Neill and Colm Bowe continued to hoover up the fouryear-old maidens with a double. Maggies Mogul won the mares by two lengths from Flames of Passion for Jamie Codd and Denis Murphy, and Red Lion Lad took the geldings by an impressive ten lengths.
At Ballyragget, Co. Kilkenny, Michael Goff, Clondaw, collected the five-year-old geldings’ maiden with Poldark Cross under stable jockey, Shane Fitzgerald.
In the mares’ version, Jamie Scallan and Seán Doyle were second with Simply Supreme, behind Brian Lawless on Whisper in Court.
Cheltenham winner, Rob James, took the winner of one on Alloverafiver for John Hally, with Call It Time second for Daryl Deacon.
In the riders’ championship, Barry O’Neill, going for four in a row, is the runaway leader on 42 winners, from Jamie Codd (22), Derek O’Connor (19) and Rob James (17).
Tiernan Power-Roche (Tomhaggard) is joint ninth on seven.
In the regional tables, O’Neill is well clear in the North on 14; he and Jamie Codd are tied on 14 each in the East, with Rob James on seven; James leads John Barry by one in the West on five.
Jordan Gainford (Caim) is third in the Novice section.
Colin Bowe, as usual, heads the handlers’ table with 29, with six others from Wexford in the top ten - Denis Murphy, The Ballagh, second on 18; Seán Thomas and Donnchadh Doyle share fifth (with ten), from Ellen Doyle, Baltimore Stables, Coolgarrow (nine), Michael Goff (eight), and Michael Murphy, Redbridge Stables, Duncormick (six).