A NEW season of action in the point-to-point fields gets underway this afternoon with the now-traditional curtain raiser at Toomebridge, which kickstarts a 28-fixture-strong calendar in the autumn term.

Unfortunately, there has already been some early disruption to this weekend’s programme, with tomorrow’s card at Castletown-Geoghegan having to be postponed due to a bereavement.

The Westmeath fixture, which attracted a total of 89 entries, has been rescheduled for next Saturday, October 10th.

The 28-fixture pre-Christmas campaign is up from 26 that were run last year. The Laois Foxhounds will stage an autumn fixture for just the third time, with their Ballygogue House, which hosted a first point-to-point in February, also set to be used on Saturday, November 28th.

That will follow seven days after a brand-new course at Kilphilbeen is unveiled for the West Waterford point-to-point on Saturday, November 21st.

That committee had to cancel their 2025 autumn fixture, but their return to the calendar with a new course, is sure to attract great interest.

Expanding mares’ programme

Both venues will each also host two four-year-old races, as the expanding programme of four-year-old mares’ maiden races continues.

A particularly dry summer has likely contributed to the slightly slower start to the season than we may be used to.

Hunter certificate numbers have fallen slightly on the corresponding point last year as the season gets underway.

Despite that, the start of a new season always brings with it a cast of new contenders for the open lightweight and hunter chase division.

Whilst the postponement of Castletown-Geoghegan may leave the opening weekend of the season without an open race, there are several interesting recruits hopefully waiting in the wings to tackle the returning proven performers.

Familiar faces

Of those familiar faces to pointing followers who have already received early hunter certificates, the former two-time champion pointer Winged Leader will once again be joined by his stablemates Ferns Lock, Big Interest and Bold Enough.

Jack Doyle has taken over the training license from his father Pat, and his first season as a handler will see him inherit a trio of potent open performers, namely Hunters Yarn, Magic Sadler and Lifetime Ambition, the latter of whom has already been entered for Castletown-Geoghegan.

The former Grade 1 winner Fakir D’Oudairies finished behind two of those Suirview Stable open horses in autumn open races last year before he went over the banks at Punchestown and Cheltenham in the spring.

Enda Bolger has taken out a hunter certificate for the now 11-year-old, who was last in action in the Mayo National at Ballinrobe in late April.

Lets Go Champ fared best of the Irish challenge in last season’s Aintree Foxhunters when chasing home the year’s dominant hunter Barton Snow.

Sophie Carter, who rode the 11-year-old to success at both Oldtown and in the Tetretema Cup at Gowran, is set to start training this season, with Lets Go Champ now in her care.

She also has the 140-rated chaser Harry Des Ongrais to look forward to in her string for the season ahead, having contested both the Thyestes and a valuable handicap chase at the Dublin Racing Festival for Henry de Bromhead earlier this year.

Among the other new additions to the division this year is My Immortal. A 40/1 winner of the Grand National Trial at Punchestown in mid-February, he has not run since pulling up in the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter a month later. Rated 132 over fences, he remains with Barry Connell.

The former Grade 1 winner Redemption Day could also be set for an appearance between the flags in the coming weeks. The lightly-raced nine-year-old has been absent since winning a maiden hurdle at Naas in March 2025, having enjoyed his biggest success on the track in the 2024 Champion Bumper at the Punchestown Festival.

Formerly trained by Willie Mullins, he is now with Mark Byrne, who had success as an owner last season with the Sam Curling-trained mare Shake The Bag. Byrne is another new handler who will be saddling a first runner in their own name this season.

HAVING surrendered his leading handler title to Sam Curling last season, Colin Bowe is certainly starting the season with intent.

The 13-time champion features heavily among the entries for the season’s opening fixtures, with his Milestone Stables accounting for almost a quarter of the entries for the fixtures at Toomebridge and Castletown-Geoghegan, when they closed earlier this week.

In all, Bowe made 32 entries, 12 for today’s fixture at Toomebridge, and 20 for the now-rescheduled fixture in Castletown-Geoghegan.

The lower hunter certificate numbers have unfortunately resulted in a drop in the entry numbers for both fixtures compared to their corresponding fixtures in 2025, which only serves to underline the importance of Bowe’s entries at this time of the year to the profitability of these early season fixtures.

Numerical advantage

The Wexford operator has typically tended to make his numerical advantage count in the autumn term, particularly since Covid.

In the five seasons up to 2020, Bowe saddled an average of 8.6 winners in the autumn season. However, since then his autumn tally of winners has risen sharply. In the five seasons up to last year’s below-par campaign, his average autumn tally had doubled to 17, a number that few other handlers reach in the course of an entire season.

With Curling’s team heavily populated by younger horses for the season ahead, Bowe’s bid to reassert his recent autumn dominance and provide an immediate response to the loss of his title could prove to be one of the defining narratives through the early weeks of the new season.

ONE of the notable point-to-point-related developments that occurred through the summer months was the retirement from race-riding of Maxine O’Sullivan.

The Cork native has been a significant presence in weigh-tents, particularly on the Cork and Waterford circuit for close to two decades, having first ridden in a point-to-point in January 2008.

In all, O’Sullivan rode 80 point-to-point winners in Ireland, 48 of which were recorded on horses trained by her father Eugene, in a career where she was crowned p2p.ie champion lady rider seven times between 2010 and 2024.

Her achievements also extended into the four-year-old maiden division. Coqolino’s victory at Ballindenisk in December 2019 made O’Sullivan just the eighth female rider in the previous 30 years to win a race in that category.

However, her career in the saddle will be best remembered for the 2020 Cheltenham Festival success of It Came To Pass in the St James’s Place Foxhunter Chase.

Her final point-to-point winner came aboard the prolific Winged Leader in the ladies’ open at Moig South.

It was her fourth occasion to partner the Winged Love gelding, and her retirement from race riding brings to an end one of the most successful careers enjoyed by a female rider in the point-to-point fields here.