THE Aussies sure have a wonderful turn of phrase and thankfully, their sports reporters and commentators don’t refrain from reflecting that. Among this writer’s particular favourites is the term “selling the candy’’ to describe fooling an opponent with a dummy move.

The best, to my mind though, is “the old Don’t Argue’’, which is quintessentially Australian. It refers to a player fending off an attempted tackle in either of the rugby codes or Aussie rules, using a palm or forearm, pushing into the chest with vehemence. If successful, the would-be tackler ends up floored.

Don’t Argue.

Richard Pugh doesn’t need to resort to violence but his point is invariably well made. There is an assuredness that comes with knowing you’re right and he wanted right on his side when embarking on championing the cause of point-to-point racing.

The Sligo man reasoned that opinions would not be changed just by appealing to people’s better judgement or insisting on the sport’s value to the overall industry. He had to prove it and show it.

The Pugh version of the ‘Don’t Argue’ came in the form of facts and figures, refuting perception with reality, fiction with fact. He went gangbusters on the mythology of ill-informed assessment to the extent that the massive role of point-to-pointing in the wider context of National Hunt racing is irrefutable.

PASSION FOR POINTING

Now 39, Pugh’s passion for point-to-pointing is based on the sport providing access to a world he dreamt of being part of, in a way that the track could never do for someone not born into it. He could help build fences, go down to watch the horses come in, mingle around the tent where the jockeys togged out and not be told to leave. There was no inner circle.

He rode for three years before his stature forced him to call it quits at 19. He still had time to achieve the dream of most point-to-point jockeys by riding a winner over the banks at Punchestown, while also piloting the last winner ever recorded by legendary local trainer, Billy Boyers.

Since then, he has traversed a route that included eight years as a company director in the wine and spirits industry and has brought him to his current position as Tattersalls Ireland’s director of sales for horses in training.

Along the way, he has also trained a few pointers and become a highly-rated commentator, but is best known for Irish Point-to-Point Services and the website p2p.ie. It is now the go-to resource not just for point-to-point followers but for the sport’s main protagonists.

Pointing is his overriding passion and while having to call time very prematurely on race-riding, watching his wife Jennifer become champion lady rider (jointly with Liz Lalor) was a tremendous kick, particularly as he trained the winner that saw her tie for the title in 2008-9. Now that she is a Turf Club doctor, she is no longer permitted to hold a riding licence.

TATTERSALLS IRELAND

Richard was appointed a non-executive director at Tattersalls Ireland in 2012 so nobody was surprised when he got the nod to take on the executive role last October after the company took over the Brightwells operation. It has been hectic but enjoyable and if he cannot give the time to p2p that he used to, there is a team of three overseeing the continuation of its services. His focus has to be on his role with Tattersalls.

“We’re not inventing the wheel here,” Pugh reasons. “We bought an existing business. From that point of view there is a template there. The first challenge is to make sure that we at least maintain the success that Brightwells began. Then you’d like to think that somewhere along the way you can evolve it and improve it. Everyone likes to bring their bit to the table and hopefully I can along the way.

“When there’s change, people could potentially be concerned. So you get those first four sales out of the way. We’ve had our few horses going over £200,000, we’ve held the averages or improved them, we’ve held the aggregate, we’ve held the median good and strong. To see that they’ve all gone by as strong as they have given the tough year that we’re in has given people confidence that they can buy their store in confidence and know there is a good market for it.”

He enjoyed running his own business but as his father told him, being the boss can be lonely. Being involved in decision making on a collaborative basis was new and exciting. He learned a lot from it since becoming involved in 2012 and clearly created an impression. Or probably more of an impression, because what he had done in carving out a niche for himself in the point-to-point world could not have been missed.

FRENCH-BREDS

Cheltenham proved once again that the Irish horse can perform at the highest level. Of the 28 winners at the festival, 18 were sired by Irish stallions, 14 were bred in Ireland, 12 were sold in Ireland and eight were graduates of the point-to-point scene. It makes concerns addressed about the proliferation of the French-bred horse seem a tad misplaced.

“The French-bred thing has been overplayed as long as I can remember. There are two points to make here. One is, to borrow the stat used by Kevin Blake, that the number of 140+ rated horses as a percentage of the overall has increased over the last five years so they should be worried about us not the other way around.

“The other thing is, what point-to-pointing did, is it provided Ireland with a shop window for Irish-bred horses because after a standard day in November-December, in Fairyhouse or Navan, almost none of the winners are for sale. The second horse immediately has a sense of having been beaten already.

“Point-to-pointing, as it grew, created this opportunity for the market to source high class Irish horses and in doing so, ensured that the market could buy Irish horses that went on to be Cheltenham Festival winners and that is what the role of point-to-point racing has been appreciated for. That’s only recently. Now there is absolutely no doubt that it serves such an important role.”

There are detractors who choose to ignore the inexorable repetitiveness of the production of champion graduates and claim that point-to-pointing is partially to blame for the drop in owners under rules. A closer investigation of the business model of the larger point-to-point operations suggests this is bunkum.

STRONG SELLERS

The likes of Colin Bowe, Denis Murphy, Wilson Dennison, Donnchadh and Sean Doyle, Andy and Willie Slattery, Willie Codd, Warren Ewing and Thomond O’Mara are all about investment, improvement and selling at a profit. Then repeat the cycle. They have no interest in owning racehorses, not in a Grade 1 race and not in a bumper at Tramore.

“There are no owners in the four- and five-year-old division, which is where most of the horses run in point-to-pointing. The only owners are maybe Gigginstown. All of the other horses you see in a point-to-point at the moment are bought by trading men; they’re pinhookers effectively. Not one of them ever has a dream to own a Cheltenham Festival winner. They dream to sell one.

“In the ridiculous hypothetical situation where you got rid of point-to-pointing, those boys are not going to row into 50 three-year-olds to go and have fun in bumpers next year. They’d be gone forever and they’d never be back.

“The biggest plus of pointing is that the majority of the money goes back in. It hasn’t landed in an account before they’re literally spending it at store sales. Every economy needs to be turning. It needs people to spend money. When economy stops, people with money stop. The point-to-point man is gold dust in that scenario. The respect these guys deserve within the industry is immeasurable.”

He tells of a seminar he attended where bloodstock agent Anthony Bromley explained the increasing impatience of owners. Whereas once, purchasing a yearling to go flat racing was the answer, now the quickest route to the track was to buy a point-to-pointer.

“There is nothing quicker than an Irish point-to-pointer to get you to the track. We must have had seven or eight horses from our November and December sales already win or finished placed in bumpers. Tomngerry has won all four starts and Its’afreebee was third to Yorkhill at the festival too.

“Point-to-pointing is a filter process. It allows the top guys to buy 50, work out which five are potentially high class, which 15 or 20 should win races, which 10 might win point-to-points and which five or 10 were never good enough and the market should act accordingly.”

MORE FUNDING

The increase in funding for point-to-point is naturally welcomed but given what it provides in the overall context, it should really be increased further. Indeed the €4,500 per meeting, plus €800 per race (at a time when the average number of races is down from just over eight per meeting to just over six) leaves hunt committees with only €400 more than 10 years ago. When you consider the monumental contribution of point-to-pointing to the wider industry, that doesn’t seem right.

Pugh is hopeful that the streamlining of the Turf Club and Horse Racing Ireland responsibilities won’t have a detrimental effect on life between the flags and isn’t bothered who is taking in the money for the hunter certs once the funds make their way back to the hunt committees.

“I was in Liscarroll (on Sunday). The number of people who volunteer is staggering; 15 yellow hi-vis jackets met me before I turned the car off, not one of them earning a penny out of the day. With the whole lot, there’d be 50-60 people, not one of them paid. So the hunts have all of the power and that’s what’s good about it. They have the control to provide the services to run the meeting or not.”

Naturally enough, point-to-pointing is not immune from the reduction in the number of horses racing. That goes back to production and if nobody wants a return to the days when 4,500 National Hunt foals a year were being born in Ireland, with the numbers decreased by around 2,000 nowadays, there is an inevitable cause for concern.

MORE MARES

Encouraging owners to race more mares would help. The various bonus schemes of recent years have certainly had an impact but more can be done. Pugh believes that the authorities need to adopt his tried and tested policy to illustrate the considerable benefits of racing mares.

“Education is key. I would have thought that what allowed point-to-pointing to grow was the ability to generate facts and not just say: ‘Those point-to-point horses are right horses.’ I know that the first year, 2005, when we started counting point-to-pointers, there were 455 winners (on the track) that year. That’s grown to over 1,100 last season.

“I know in 2014 there were 10 Cheltenham Festival winners. Last year there were six, this year there were eight and 10 seconds. If you keep throwing stuff like that out, nobody can dispute it. Nobody can dispute that 24% of all Cheltenham runners last year were point-to-pointers. That’s how point-to-pointing made progress, through education with solid facts.

“At the National Hunt seminar, Brian Mayoh produced stats that said that winning and proven mares, were far superior and a safer bet than to buy out of a good family with not so good a record on the track or unraced for that matter. You don’t not run a mare that’s running very fast and is sound. There are exceptions. If I own a full-sister to Faugheen I might consider not running her but the vast majority are better to prove themselves. If we can educate strongly and show that proven mares produce better horses, that there’s no reason to think that Quevega, who has run 20 times, is less likely to produce a good foal, that will help change it. If we can educate the National Hunt world and produce a programme to complement that, you would hope then that the market would start rewarding what is most likely to be the best. That would drive demand but a lot of research needs to be done.”

RESEARCH

He knows all about research. There isn’t any information you can look for from point-to-pointing that he doesn’t have. It took time and patience and it served pointing well. One particular myth he was happy to blow apart was the notion that winners of four-year-old maidens were unlikely to progress as they had been peaked to perform and attract buyers.

“For a start, it’s an insult to the trainers and an insult to racing, to think that you could squeeze a horse too tight and still manage to win. In 2006-2013, there were 795 four-year-old maiden winners – 63% of them went on to win on the track, 83% of them won or were placed on the track and only 4% didn’t go on to run on the track. If I said to you I want you to buy me 100 horses; 96 of them must run and 63 of them must win, I don’t care what your budget was you’d have your back to the wall.”

There’s a classic Don’t Argue, right there. The Cheltenham Festival Sale was very pleasing, but the racing is what warms the cockles, particularly when the former pointers prevail for their producers, as Blacklion and Ballyandy did for Wilson Dennison, and when the likes of Derek O’Connor and Jamie Codd confirm their genius on such a stage. It’s another confirmation of what Richard Pugh has not just been saying but showing us for years.

And you can’t argue with that.