THE jumps racing circuit of America has proven to be a happy hunting ground for a number of riders that have previously featured in point-to-points, with the champion jockey title having been claimed since 2013 by a rider that started their careers riding between the flags here.
Following title successes for Willie McCarthy and Paddy Young, Kieran Norris, who rode 24 winners point-to-pointing here, won back-to-back American titles in 2016 and 2017 and last year it was the turn of Darren Nagle. The Mallow native won three races point-to-pointing before heading Stateside.
That title run is going to continue for a seventh straight year, with Jack Doyle claiming a share of the 2019 riders’ title, in what was an act of great sportsmanship from his fellow champion, the British born Michael Mitchell.
Outcome
With quite a selected programme of races on the American jumps circuit, the race to become champion jockey is often closely fought, and this year had been building to a similar outcome, with the two riders tied at the top of the standings ahead of tomorrow’s season ending fixture.
Doyle, the 2007 winner of the leading novice rider in point-to-point racing here, has had to settle for the runner-up spot twice in recent years in America, finishing second to Paddy Young in 2015, and then again last year, when a season’s best 16 winners left him just one shy of Nagle.
He had held a one win advantage over Mitchell going into last weekend’s sole fixture at Pine Mountain in Georgia. However with Mitchell claiming the feature $75,000 AFLAC Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, getting the better of Doyle’s mount City Dreamer by a length in the process, the pair had sat on 20 winners with just tomorrow’s Steeplechase of Charleston card in Hollywood, South Carolina remaining.
Broken jaw
Unfortunately for Doyle, the son of leading point-to-point handler Pat, whose Quakerstown winner Bacardys landed the Grade 2 Lismullen Hurdle at Navan last Sunday, suffered a broken jaw in a fall from the French-bred Zanzi Win in a four-year-old hurdle, the final race on the Pine Mountain card last Saturday. This had ruled him out of what would have been tomorrow’s title showdown in South Carolina.
In shades of John Francome’s gesture to Peter Scudamore in the early 1980s, Mitchell has decided to sit out tomorrow’s fixture, electing to remain tied with the injured Doyle to ensure the pair share the champion jockey crown.
Graduates
While Doyle (right) will not be able to compete at the final fixture of the American season tomorrow, there will be a number of equine graduates from Irish point-to-point racing.
Fancy Pance, who finished second in a four-year-old maiden for Ellen Doyle at The Pigeons last autumn, will make his American debut for Jonathan Sheppard in a $25,000 maiden hurdle, and Gaye Breeze, Declan Queally’s two-time winner from last season, goes in search of a second American success for Meriweither Morris in a $20,000 handicap hurdle.
THE ramping up of the new National Hunt season last month, with many of the winter horses making their return to action, has produced a record-breaking month of success for point-to-point graduates throughout the month of October.
In all, 139 races were won in the first time that the winner count for the month of October has broken the 130 mark. It also continues a year-on-year rise of success which has climbed steadily from 118 in October 2017, to 124 12 months ago.
This includes graded successes for Jonathan Fogarty’s Castletown-Geoghegan winner Flash The Steel in the Silver Trophy at Chepstow, Cormac Doyle’s Bartlemy runner-up Jan Maat in the Buck House Novices’ Chase, and Donal Hassett’s Mainstown third Jarveys Plate in a listed novices’ chase at Chepstow, in what were just three of the eight blacktype successes during the month.
November and December are typically the months that produce the greatest number of wins for point-to-pointers, and buoyed by this record haul of winners throughout October 2019, there is every hope that this season will produce further record tallies.
In the first 12 days of November alone, 77 races have already been won by horses that started their careers between the flags in Ireland, including victories for the likes of Road To Respect, Andy Dufresne, Lostintranslation, Envoi Allen and Samcro.
Remarkable weekend for broodmare Coco Opera
DESPITE being some seven months away from the end of the current point-to-point season, Richard Lynch has moved into pole position to claim what would be a first champion breeder’s award following a remarkable weekend for broodmare Coco Opera, who produced three winners across two fixtures that he had bred.
The Lafontaine mare, who was a real Thurles specialist during her two-year race career in the late 1990s, recording four of her five successes over hurdles at the Tipperary venue for William Durkan, produced her first winner of the current pointing season when Ellen Doyle’s Crossing Lines ran out an impressive 10-length winner of the five-year-old geldings’ maiden at Lisronagh on Saturday.
The bay gelding, her 11th foal, was her only son of the late Jeremy.
Success
His half-brother, Castle Robin, one year the junior of the Lisronagh winner, added further success for the family when he came home in front for Paul Cashman in a division of the four-year-old geldings’ maiden at Dromahane 24 hours later.
This son of Robin Des Champs was subsequently offered at yesterday evening’s Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham November Sale.
The third and final victory over the weekend came for her most successful offspring to date, Arctic Skipper, as he won the open at the Cork course on his seasonal reappearance, bringing his career successes to eight, including a narrow defeat of Gilgamboa in the 2016 Grade 2 Fortria Chase on the corresponding weekend three weeks earlier.
Arcitic Skipper was also one of two winners for Coco Opera in the point-to-point fields last season, with Festival Opera also winning the valuable banks’ race at Lingstown in March, and there will be big things expected of her latest offspring, a Fame And Glory gelding purchased by Denis Leahy for €50,000 at last June’s Goffs Land Rover Sale.
Breeder
Last season’s champion breeder Ken Parkhill, only secured that title when Cormac Doyle’s Begoodtoyourself became the fourth individual point-to-point winner that he bred when enjoying success on the final day of the season at Ballingarry.
Lynch’s success for this season alone, have been achieved with the one broodmare, and on the one weekend of racing, which is certainly a notable feat that will be one of the highlights of the season.
Somewhat remarkably, that Dromahane double was the second Sunday in succession that a single mare produced two winners on the same card.
Seven days earlier, Celestial Silver, an Alderbrook mare, was responsible for two winners at Damma House when her first two offspring, Ryans Cave and Mamaslittlestar, returned victorious for breeders Peter and Ann Downes.