FROM a bloodstock perspective, the 2024/25 point-to-point campaign will undoubtedly be remembered as the season that Walk In The Park stamped his dominance on this sphere of the racing universe.

For the first time, the Grange Stud resident will be crowned champion point-to-point sire, and he will do so with a staggering set of numbers.

Since the campaign got underway at Toomebridge right back in early October, Walk In The Park has been responsible for an unprecedented 48 winners between the flags, a total that could grow ever further with this weekend’s three season-ending fixtures at Ballingarry and Inchydoney.

To put that into context, it is the largest number of winners that an individual stallion has recorded within a single season since records began back in 1989. The former Epsom Derby runner-up will also likely be crowned champion by the largest winning margin within that near-40-year period. Currently, Walk In The Park is 21 winners clear of the 2019 champion, Getaway, with Jet Away continuing to climb the ranks into third.

Often, the leading sire prize can be skewed by a particular stallion having a small number of particularly successful open or winners grade performers that inflate their position on the leaderboard.

That is not the case with Walk In The Park, who comes out on top under any metric, as his 48 winners were achieved by 40 individual horses, with Between Waters and The Great Unknown, his only winners in open company.

Maiden winners

He has also maintained his position as the number one producer of winners in the spring 2025 four-year-old maiden campaign. Here, an increased number of divided races within the age group this term has seen the number of races which has taken place rise to 101 and counting, of which 47 different stallions have sired at least one winner.

Subsequent Punchestown Festival bumper winner Bud Fox was first to strike for Walk In The Park at Bellharbour and, since then, his tally of winners across the spring four-year-old term has risen to 11, including the £320,000 seller Clondaw Park, and more recently the Colin Bowe-trained Grangeclare Park, who was an 18-length winner at Curraghmore.

Crystal Ocean, who also stands under the Coolmore National Hunt banner at the Beeches Stud, boasts the highest strike rate of the seven stallions that have produced four or more four-year-old maiden winners in 2025.

From his first crop of four-year-old runners, seven of 27 runners in the category this year have returned victorious, including Cristal D’Estruval, the £400,000 top lot at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival sale in March.

Mirroring his current third-place position in the overall season standings, Jet Away shares that spot with Maxios, with the pair each responsible for a quintet of four-year-old maiden winners this year.

IRISH-TRAINED horses account for over a quarter of the entries at this afternoon’s Welsh International point-to-point at Ffynnon Druidon.

The concept was first tried in 2017, when the inaugural Barbury International fixture, the first British point-to-point to allow Irish-trained horses, took place at the Wiltshire venue in south-west England.

Shark Hanlon and Martin Cullinane registered winners on that ground-breaking card eight years ago and, whilst Barbury Castle has since disappeared from the British pointing calendar, the ‘international’ concept was revived last year by the Pembrokeshire hunt.

Taking advantage of their sea connections with Irish ports, the Trecoed Farm course last year was well-received, with John Paul Brennan getting among the winners.

The Camolin trainer is one of seven Irish handlers with entries at the new Pembrokeshire venue of Ffynnon Druidon, which hosts today’s fixture.

Irish horses feature among the entries for all six races on the card, from a point-to-point flat race right through the ranks to a mixed open, and Brennan could be joined by Cormac Doyle, Shark Hanlon, Richard Foley, Darragh Berry, Paul Pierce and Johnny Berry, who all have horses entered.

Point-to-point ratings

ROYALE Rocker (92+) overcame obvious signs of his inexperience, when he made a winning debut at Ballindenisk last Sunday.

Overcoming greenness in the home straight when in front, he likely would have won by further but for that inexperience, in a race which not only clocked the quickest time on the card, but also saw the front pair pull 25 lengths clear of the field. It was a good performance for this time of the year.

The other division of the four-year-old geldings’ maiden was won by Jewel Hope (89+), a horse with a completely different profile, having at one time been a 350,000 gns Tattersalls Book 1 purchase by Godolphin. The flat speed that fills his pedigree was evident in the performance that he produced to ease clear in the home straight. His future will likely be over shorter trips under rules now.

Time To Give (81+) took Jonathan Fogarty’s tally of four-year-old maiden winners this season to 15, when successfully reverting to the front-running tactics which had also been employed when making his debut at Dromahane in April.

Taking a big step forward from her two previous outings, she ensured that few of her 11 rivals were involved in this by dominating from the front.

It was a tighter finisher in the corresponding contest at Tattersalls that was won by Moonlight Paradise (80+). A particularly slow pace resulted in the first four home being separated by just over two lengths.

Eagle Warrior (89+) tended to edge left over his obstacles, but overcame that to make all in division one of the four-year-old geldings’ maiden, whilst Timmys Jet Away (90+) outstayed the favourite for a winning debut in the second division.