LAST weekend’s inaugural Goffs UK Tingle Creek sale saw £1.8 million spent on 14 horses with Irish point-to-point form from the preceding weeks, bringing the total spend on point-to-pointers this autumn to just over £5.4 million.

Strikingly, that leaves the average price for those points sold at public auction this season at £96,800 as the clamber to secure the pick of each weekend’s point-to-pointers has left some handlers and owners richly renumerated for the pick of their produce.

The rising value of winners and placed horses from the point-to-point domain is unsurprisingly leading those handlers and owners to go in search of even greater spoils by increasing their own spend at the store sales.

Significant sums

An obvious case in point came at Quakerstown last Sunday when the first two horses home in the opening four-year-old maiden had both cost significant six-figure sums at the store sales.

Donnchadh Doyle’s debut victor Ideal Des Bordes was bought at the Land Rover sale for €115,000, but his price tag was trumped by the horse that he beat at the Clare venue. Scandisk Park, who is a half-brother to the mighty Hurricane Fly, was bought by Michael Shefflin and Paul Holden for €200,000 at the Derby Sale.

That’s €315,000 for the first two home in point-to-point, illustrating how far the division has progressed.

Just over a decade ago younger-age maidens were the means by which handlers could turn a low-value foal or store purchase into a more valuable commodity by proving its ability in the pointing fields.

That still occurs to a degree today. Owner John Phelan spent just €3,000 to buy The Jukebox Man as a foal in 2018, and last Saturday he sold that Ask gelding for £70,000 after it won a four-year-old maiden in Turtulla on its debut.

The great success that owners and handlers have made of their production line in point-to-pointing has meant both the input and output costs have multiplied over the past 10-plus years.

While that Quakerstown race last Sunday may be an extreme example of the high-value stores currently making their way to the pointing fields, action at the foal sales this week would indicate it may only intensify in the years to come.

On Tuesday a Walk In The Park colt foal out of Grade 1 winner Shattered Love sold for €155,000. Purchaser Gerry Aherne indicated that he was bought for a syndicate which is collecting the best Walk In The Park foals it can find and preparing them for point-to-points. The same syndicate spent €82,000 to secure another by the Grange Stud resident this week.