WITHIN the point-to-point realm, 2025 is a year when it was largely older horses who garnered so many of the headlines.

For the first time since 2022, there was not only an Irish-trained winner of the St. James’s Place Festival Hunter Chase, but an Irish takeover of the most coveted prize in the division at the Cheltenham Festival, when Wonderwall led home an Irish clean sweep of the placings.

Rob James’ mount just got the better of the Emmet Mullins-trained Its On The Line by a neck, with Willitgoahead back in third, mirroring the similar Irish one-two-three which had accompanied that latest Irish success in the 2022 edition.

The victory of the nine-year-old was the icing on the cake for his trainer, Sam Curling, in what was a year full of success for the Tipperary handler and his Skehanagh Stables team.

That expertly executed piece of target training undoubtedly played a large part in Curling recently being presented with the point-to-point prize at the HRI Awards, during which he confirmed that his new stable star would likely now head directly to Prestbury Park next March in his bid to become the first horse since Pacha Du Polder in 2018 to successfully retain his crown in the race.

That follows his winning return to action in a Dromahane open last month, which was one of 38 victories between the flags in 2025 for Curling, of which 15 have come throughout this latest autumn term.

Leading handler

Crucially, that sees him end the autumn campaign as the leading handler between the flags, having saddled more than double the number of winners of any other handler, setting up what could be one of the leading storylines to come into 2026 as Curling bids to secure a first trainers’ title.

Barry O’Neill once again ends 2025 as the sport’s leading rider, having partnered 13 winners, but few will have been as significant for the reigning champion as the success of Winged Leader at Portrush in October.

That six-and-a-half-length victory earned the 11-year-old his place in the record books, coming as it did, as his 34th career victory in the sphere, earning him the title of the winning-most point-to-pointer in the modern era of the sport.

Having equalled Still William’s 59-year record of 33 recorded victories at Necarne back in May, the pressure was certainly on David Christie and his team to deliver that all-important record-breaking win five months later at Portrush, the home course of his long-standing owners, John Hegarty and Jennifer O’Kane.

But as has been the case right throughout so much of the career of Winged Leader, he duly stepped up and delivered a popular local success for his connections.

AT the other end of the spectrum, the conveyor belt of subsequent track winners continued to turn, with each new day bringing with it further successes under rules for horses who started their careers in point-to-points.

From Handstands in the Grade 2 Towton Novices’ Chase at Ffos Las in early January, through to the December Gold Cup victory of Glengouly last Saturday, ex-Irish pointers have notched up no fewer than 104 big-race successes throughout 2025. That, with the promise of more to come throughout the busy Christmas period, before the year is out.

Glengouly’s success at Cheltenham last weekend also added to the ever-growing list of riches to be claimed in 2025 by the graduates of Pat Doyle’s Suirview Stables. The Tipperary handler heads into the final days of 2025 holding onto the bragging rights as having produced the greatest number of blacktype race winners throughout the calendar year.

His tally currently stands at 11 for 2025, and it is quite the impressive list of prizes that his graduates have amassed throughout the year, headlined by the Aintree Grand National success of Nick Rockett.

That highlight was sandwiched by a trio of Grade 1 victories at the big spring festivals for Bob Olinger, Honesty Policy, and Champ Kiely, a cluster of top-level successes that Doyle will be hoping Honesty Policy can add to when he makes his expected seasonal reappearance this afternoon in the Grade 1 Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot.

Extra credit

The son of Jukebox Jury deserves extra credit, having achieved his initial Grade 1 success at Aintree in April, just six months after he had finished second in a four-year-old maiden for Doyle at Castletown-Geoghegan.

That combined haul of big race successes throughout 2025 continues to drive the demand for the latest crop of pointers who have taken their formative racing steps in the pointing fields this year.

Last week’s latest sale in Cheltenham edged the public spend on point-to-pointers throughout 2025 over the €30 million mark. Not contained within that figure is the unknown sum of the total spend for point-to-pointers on the private market.

Anecdotally, that share remains very strong, particularly among those horses that would be expected to command the top-end prices. That is likely a contributing factor towards the figure for the total spend on point-to-points in the autumn, decreasing from €8 million in 2024 to €6.2 million this year.

Such is the strength of the demand for the best prospects that many of the most eye-catching performers are being snapped up before they can even be offered on the market.

THE abandonment of last Sunday’s previously rescheduled fixture at Tattersalls has brought the autumn term to an end on a disappointing note in what has otherwise been a pre-Christmas campaign that has been filled with plenty of positives.

That included the news of a very welcome prize money boost, which had greeted the start of the season, courtesy of Horse Racing Ireland, who committed to increasing the value of all races outside of the commercially focused four and five-year-old maiden races to €2,000.

Encouragingly, the number of entries and runners has increased slightly, with the average entry for the 26 fixtures which were completed coming in at 99, the highest return under that metric since the 2020 and 2021 autumn campaigns, which were inflated by interruptions during the spring seasons in those respective years. In line with that, hunter certs had been issued for a total of 1,413 horses by the beginning of this week, which represented an increase of 6% on the corresponding point 12 months ago.

Other year-on-year comparisons also reflect similar positive returns.

The 318 individual handlers who have an active hunter certificate for at least one horse mirrors that increase, as it represents a 7% rise within 12 months.

Meanwhile, in the saddle, 10 riders registered their first point-to-point winners during the autumn term, compared to six throughout the 2024 autumn campaign.

That all combines to create a solid foundation for the spring term, which gets underway after the short Christmas break at Dromahane on Tuesday, December 30th.