IN recent years, the treatment of owners at rules courses has come under scrutiny. In response, one of the initiatives many racecourses now offer to owners, is to provide them with a complimentary copy of the race DVD to allow them to relive their successes for the days, weeks and months to come.

For their two-day Loughanmore fixture over the Easter weekend, the East Antrim committee join the Tynan and Armagh Hunt in becoming the second northern-based hunt to provide the winning connections of each race with a copy of the race DVD as a memento of the day. The initiative last weekend was sponsored by City Auction Group, taking the financial cost off the hunt.

This year’s very welcome funding increase has proved to be a vital support for many hunts at a time of reduced entries. However, in order to commence the recovery, a focus must be placed, firstly on securing the owners presently in the sport, alongside beginning to attract new or previous owners back into point-to-point ownership.

Initiatives such as these may only be small gestures, but they are efforts which enhance the experiences of owners in the sport – particularly the owners of the less economically valuable older maiden, winners and open horses.

Gerry Kelleher of the new handler’s association spoke of the importance of focusing some attention on owners at the point-to-point seminar in January, and requested that hunts, where possible, would try and further increase the prize money of one of these races at their fixture.

The Meath and Tara hunt are set to do so, as their fixture at Fairyhouse tomorrow will see the most valuable open lightweight this season take place. The race, which is restricted to novice riders, has a total prize fund of €2,000, ensuring that the winner will pick-up a sum of €1,400.

These two proactive initiatives are very welcome developments from those involved.