WINGED Leader and his connections were the toast of racegoers in Portrush last weekend, when he created history by becoming the winning-most point-to-point horse in the modern era of the sport.
Once the remarkable 11-year-old had secured his record-equalling 33rd victory at Necarne, one of 11 wins for the son of Winged Love last season, it was soon clear that the date of October 11th had been circled in the calendar as D-day in his bid for this record-breaking feat.
Portrush is the home venue for the horse’s owners, Jennifer O’Kane and John Hegarty, and it is a fixture that they have supported for a number of years, sponsoring a race on the card, as they continued to do last Saturday.
The most northerly course on the calendar has also been his most lucrative, with Saturday’s victory bringing his career success at Portrush to six, undoubtedly, the course that he has been most successful at. However, it takes some skill to pull off that level of advance planning with horse training, with that race having been targeted months in advance.
It is sure to have been an enormous relief for all involved when he crossed the line with regular pilot Barry O’Neill.
Horse of a lifetime
But this has been the horse of a lifetime for all involved with him, and they have all been rewarded by the locations of his most significant recent wins.
In addition to the significance of Portrush for both his owners and handler, it was Necarne, the course that is closest to his handler David Christie’s Derrylin base, that Winged Leader had moved alongside Still William’s 33 recorded victories earlier in the year.
Christie has been associated with many top point-to-pointers through the years, mastering the art of producing open lightweight horses to win time and time again.
A record which includes five other horses that have won 15 or more races in the sphere, namely Top Twig (21), Arctic Copper (18), Royal Ranger (16), Finoel (15) and Maple Mons (15), is testament to that.
This is an operation that has delivered across a number of decades, and the handling of Winged Leader is just the latest example of this.
Despite being trained in Fermanagh, one of the more remote locations for a point-to-point yard, Winged Leader has been incredibly well-travelled right across the island, running at 21 different point-to-point tracks, bringing him to point-to-point fans across all four provinces, which cannot be underestimated.
Remarkably, this has seen him win at Ballinaboola, Ballycrystal, Belclare, Castletown-Geoghegan, Cragmore, Farmacaffley, Kirkistown, Loughanmore, Loughbrickland, Moig South, Necarne, Portrush, Quakerstown, Tattersalls, Taylorstown, Tinahely and Toomebridge.
Consistency
It is this consistency and the ability to show up and deliver week in and week out that has brought Winged Leader to this point. Not only is he the winning-most horse of the modern era, but earlier this year, he became the first horse to defend the champion point-to-point horse crown.
Christie has been pivotal in all of it, ensuring it will undoubtedly go down as his crowning achievement within the sport.
LAST weekend, Pa King became the latest member to join an exclusive club of just 26 riders who have recorded 200-plus winners in the pointing sphere.
The Tipperary native registered his all-important 200th winner between the flags with the all-the-way victory of Miss Chipley in the five-year-old and upwards mares’ maiden at Loughrea.
The one-length victory of Robert Moloney’s daughter of Ol’ Man River was the culmination of close to two decades of work, with winner number 200 in the division coming over 19 years after his first in the sphere.
That initial success was recorded aboard Templars in a four-year-old maiden at Butlerstown for John Halley.
Track performers
Since then, King has gone on to be associated with a number of subsequently successful track performers, having won maidens aboard the likes of Parsons Pistol, Pandorama, Any Currency, Alfa Beat, Draycott Place, Vanillier, and last season’s Aintree Grand National winner, Nick Rockett.
More recently, the three-time regional champion and Cheltenham Festival-winning jockey has also run a number of his own horses as a handler, saddling Changeyourstars to win a mares’ maiden at Tallow in February.
It could be one of his own, Muskerry Rock, that brings him to number 201, with that horse one of the leading contenders for the Umma House finale tomorrow afternoon.
Point-to-point ratings
GARY Murphy picked up exactly where he left off in the spring, as Rattlin Home (92+), his first runner of the new season, made a winning debut in the four-year-old maiden at Portrush.
The Wexford handler won six races within the age division within the space of just over two months earlier in the year, and this initial result bodes well for the other eight four-year-olds that he has hunter certed for the autumn campaign.
The El Salvador gelding was one of two horses to quicken clear of their rivals off a relatively steady gallop, as the race really began to play out on the climb out of the back straight.
Having been responsible for driving much of the increasing tempo, it was then encouraging to see him pick up when challenged and momentarily headed in between the final two fences to win going away at the line.
Nimba (92+) brought the star quality to Loughrea 24 hours later, having finished second in an Oldtown maiden in February, which is working out well.
He became the third subsequent maiden winner to emerge from that race, but it was not without some scares for his supporters.
These were almost exclusively confined to his pre-race antics when initially mounted, as he produced a polished display once coming under orders.
Confidently produced, he was forced to dig deeper than may have seemed likely when he cruised into a challenging position off the home bend by a game runner-up, but that high cruising speed will certainly be a notable asset as he drops back in trip.