POINT-to-point racing has only just returned to its rightful home in the pointing fields but, with just four weekends of racing remaining, attention swiftly turns to who may be crowned champions.

Given the interruptions of recent months, the enhanced autumn term will play a far bigger role than had seemed likely at the time in who is in the shake-up for title honours, but this year’s circumstances are certainly not unique.

Back in 2001, foot and mouth saw the season’s honours decided after little more than 20 meetings, while just under 12 months ago the season ended after 55 fixtures.

Unlike in both of those years, where the seasons came to a sudden and abrupt end with a significant number of fixtures still to take place, this year’s interruption came in the middle of the season, and the recent restart does allow the campaign to come to a natural conclusion on the final weekend of May.

This provides us with short, sharp title races in a number of categories across the remainder of the month.

Most notably, despite the 2020/’21 season being one that few will want to remember given the events of these past four months, it could yet be one that enters the record books by providing its own unique piece of history.

That is because in the four decades since the point-to-point awards were established, no individual rider has been able to secure a clean sweep of all the regional titles in a single season.

That may be about to change in 2021, however, as heading into this afternoon’s action at Broughshane, Barry O’Neill currently sits at the top of the riders’ tables in each of the four regions.

He also holds what is surely an unassailable advantage in the overall table and will become The Irish Fieldchampion point-to-point rider for the fifth year in succession.

Nationally, he has ridden 40 winners, which is more than double the number of any other rider and, unsurprisingly, he has also been the busiest with 171 rides. In fact he is the only rider to have ridden in more than 100 races this season.

With John Barry the season’s second busiest rider having ridden in 86 races, that means O’Neill has ridden in almost twice as many races as anyone else.

Given the sheer number of these additional opportunities that the Wexford rider has had over his rivals, and with a strike rate of 23%, it would seem impossible for any rider to come close to snatching that overall title from him in the closing weeks.

In the regions, however, translating such a dominance on the national leader board into each of the individual regions has never proven possible across the past four decades.

O’Connor came close

For the record-breaking Derek O’Connor, who holds an unrivalled 11 national titles and often won the title with a similar level of dominance - such as in his 2008/’09 campaign when he rode an all-time record of 113 winners and finished 49 winners clear of the field - only two of the regional titles came his way with Mikey O’Connor having prevailed in the south and Jamie Codd dominating in the east.

He came closest to achieving the feat by winning three regional titles in 2010 and then he did it again two years later. However, on both occasions it was the eastern title which alluded him, as the peak of his record-breaking years coincided with his great rival Jamie Codd winning 11 straight titles in the eastern region.

Currently, O’Neill is four clear of Brian Lawless, Declan Lavery and Rob James in the north, two winners in front of Jamie Codd in the east, tied with Rob James and James Kenny in the west and he has a five-winner advantage of James Hannon in the south.

Elite club

It was in 1982 that Ted Walsh became the first rider to win two different regional titles in the same season – a feat which has been achieved by seven other riders in addition to O’Neill – namely Tom Costello, Johnny Berry, Tony Martin, Timmy Murphy, Davy Russell, Derek O’Connor and Jamie Codd.

The changing landscape of point-to-pointing in the last decade has also left the sport somewhat less regionalised, with Wexford handlers in particular likely to feature at courses in all four corners of the island on any single weekend.

In fact, if an award was handed out to the leading handler in each of the regions, this year it would be Wexford-based handlers collecting all four, a factor that has to have aided O’Neill’s cause in his quest for history, one that would be a remarkable feat to pull off in the coming weeks.

IN line with Barry O’Neill’s dominance in so many of the riding categories, his principal supporter Colin Bowe looks assured of a ninth leading handler title courtesy of 32 winners – 11 more than any other handler. Notably, Sam Curling is the only non-Wexford-based handler to feature in the top six, alongside Donnchadh Doyle, Denis Murphy, Sean Doyle and Ellen Doyle.

The picture is, however, less clear in many of the other title categories which will be keenly followed by many over the remaining weeks, including the race to become the leading under-21 rider.

Jordan Gainford’s switch to the conditional ranks has left Sean Staples and former champion Michael O’Sullivan tied on five winners, one in front of Pearse Rogan and Barry Stone, with last year’s joint-champion Ben Harvey still very much in contention a further winner back, alongside Brian Dunleavy.

Maxine O’Sullivan shared a three-way tie when winning her fifth ladies’ title last year and it could be a similarly tight decider this time around as she is just one winner in front of Karen Ferris, Rachel Kelly, Toni Quail, Susie Doyle and Moira McElligott.

Meanwhile High Stakes, a horse that only made his competitive debut at Ballingarry back in September, is the only horse to have won four races this season and this leaves John Walsh’s charge one clear in the champion point-to-point horse category of Er Dancer, Getawayrooney and Mr Mantilla – the last-named now under the care of David Jeffreys in the Cotswolds.

THE very welcome return of older horses last weekend brings to a close what has undoubtedly been a frustrating period for their connections. During the suspension they were afforded the opportunity to run under rules whilst still preserving their hunter certificate, an option that had been taken by Er Dancer, the winner of the first open of 2021 at Lisronagh on Saturday.

Donnchadh Doyle’s seven-year-old had only been beaten 10 lengths when fourth in the Ulster National at Downpatrick on his most recent outing in March and it will be interesting to monitor how many of those horses who remain eligible to return back to the pointing sphere will elect to do so, having run on the track in recent weeks.

The IHRB has confirmed that the temporary modification to those hunter certificate eligibility rules will end following the full resumption of point-to-pointing, meaning that any horse which runs in track races other than hunter chases or point-to-point bumpers from May 7th will have their hunter certificate cancelled.