THE vote of confidence that J.P. McManus has given to the point-to-point nursery has been one of the positive developments within the sector in recent seasons.The leading owner has always had a small number of runners in the point-to-point fields, but those runners within the sphere would perhaps be more closely associated with top hunter chasers in previous years, courtesy of the likes of Elegant Lord, On The Fringe and latterly Its On The Line.

More recently, the green and gold silks have come to populate the four-year-old maiden division on a notably more frequent basis throughout the spring term, with Derek O’Connor entrusted with a number of McManus family home-breds and store purchases for an introduction into competitive life via point-to-pointing.