We are staring down the barrel of an outright ban on trail hunting, the country pursuit where hounds follow a pre-laid scent as opposed to a live animal. It is a typically divisive subject and one close to the hearts of a significant portion of the racing fraternity.
This time, though, with the head of all hunting and its related activity on the block due to Labour’s manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting “later this year”, as announced on April 1 by Daniel Zeicher (and no, it wasn’t an April Fool), the future of point-to-pointing, as staged by hunts, looks increasingly precarious.
With point-to-pointing becoming an ever-more important facet of the UK’s National Hunt scene, both in terms of racing and bloodstock businesses, it is apparent that now is a time at which we
must try to answer several questions. Can pointing continue without the foundation of hunts? How could it do so? If it can’t, what will happen to National Hunt racing and bloodstock businesses?
In speaking to a number of contributors to point-to-pointing, spanning breeding, training, selling, organising and broadcasting, I have taken a consensus of views to pinpoint the answers.
My opening line of enquiry was straightforward: is it possible for point to-pointing to continue in any capacity without the organisational and financial foundation of a hunt?
Chris Barber (left), the Hereford-based point-to-point trainer, summarised the majority view with his response: “Yes, I think there is a future for pointing without hunting, but on a far smaller scale,” he explains. “If hunting stops, point-to-pointing will be affected in a massive way.”
The future for the sport could see new point-to-pointing ‘clubs’ picking up the slack from the disbanded hunt committees. Being realistic, though, if that were to happen, Barber believes “we might have a quarter of the meetings we have now”.
Said pointing clubs would, in all likelihood, rely on existing point-to-point committees to carry on, regardless of having a hunt to raise money for, and continuing to run the meetings for the sole Purpose of facilitating the racing.
Clerk of the Course at Tranwell, the Morpeth Hunt’s (now the newly amalgamated Morpeth West Percy) point-to-point, Ed Dungait says of his committee: “We’re not keeping the point-to-point going because of the hunt, we’re doing it to keep the sport going. If hunting went extinct, but racing continued, we would likely still be putting this on.”
Dungait’s view is not, however, necessarily representative of the nation’s hunt point-to-point committees. For context, his meeting, held up in Northumberland usually over Easter Weekend with an attendance of 600 800 racegoers, costs about £19,000 to put on, and brings in around £5,000 £6,000 in profit. Their committee of hunt subscribers is fortunate to have a love of racing in common, most of them having ridden, trained or kept a pointer themselves. However, we cannot assume that all committees have the benefit of this deep-rooted love of racing.
Camilla Swift is the secretary of the Surrey Union Hunt, whose ever-popular Peper Harow meeting is held 20 minutes from Guildford and attracts a wealth, as it were, of day-tripping Londoners, hose picnics come complete with caterers and candelabras.
Their meeting costs and raises roughly double that of the Morpeth. Swift says: “The point-to-point is run as a fundraiser for the hunt. If the hunt wasn’t there, it would leave the question of ‘why run it?’
“Of course, some people would love to run the point-to-point for the sake of it, but I don’t think there would be enough of them to warrant the effort.”
And ‘effort’ it really is. Swift continues: “It is an intensive and quite a stressful job. Would you put yourself through that without a good enough reason? I don’t think that doing it solely to support
pointing is enough. If we weren’t doing it for the hunt, we wouldn’t be able to run.”
This is where the main sticking point comes into play. The reason that point to-points can run at all is because of all the hours upon hours of hard work carried out by unpaid volunteers, most of them hunt subscribers, rather than pointing enthusiasts.
When I put this fact to Dungait, who had been optimistic about the continuation of his point-to-point, he states: “Yes, without the hunt yielding the volunteers, we wouldn’t survive. We would end up being reliant on other point-to-point committees; everyone would have to help everyone else out, but there would have to be fewer meetings in our area to make that possible.”
Peel Bloodstock’s Will Kinsey makes his view on this matter clear: “Point-to points are very reliant upon the hunts because of all the helpers,” he says. “The hunts generate a community and, therefore, a community spirit. Without those people, you’ve got a problem. And that’s only running the point-to-points, let alone bringing in people to be owners, trainers and jockeys!
“The hunts fund all of this and they’re only able to do so because they have so many volunteers who work for free.”
Swift suggests the only reliable way to make a continuation of pointing feasible without hunts is “if you used the money raised to pay the volunteers – that might work.”
Chris Dawson, proprietor of Nunstainton Stud, says: “I don’t think the hunts themselves are probably that keen to run point-to-points. A lot of them just do it because it’s the tradition. They see them as a very hard way of making money. They could run a pleasure ride to raise money for a lot less effort.”
In much a similar vein, Swift says of the Peper Harow clientele: “They don’t need the pointing element. They are there for the day out. You could put on some other equestrian event at the site
and end up with a similar day.”
This does beg the question: is all their hard work warranted if most of those coming through the gates aren’t really engaging with the racing?
Sense of belonging
Regarding the provision of a free workforce to get these fixtures on, reduced in number or otherwise, the Pointing Pointers Podcast creator Ben Atkins is confident that, given a situation where hunting communities are decimated by an outright ban, supporters would be “motivated by the community itself”.
He continues: “People want to belong to something. If you take the hunt away, they’ll want to rally around a countryside cause. I believe people would get involved when their hunt related duties cease. In fact, not having hunting will make some people more available.”
Atkins, though a stark hunt supporter, is optimistic about the prospect of pointing taking a further step away from hunting, believing the overall effect would vastly improve the health of the sport.
He explains: “I don’t think getting rid of hunting is necessarily a bad thing for pointing. Currently, every bit of profit made on the day is drained by the hunt – in what other world does that happen?
“If the money isn’t immediately leaving the pot [to the hunt], you are able to reinvest in the product. For example, you buy your own marquee instead of renting it and buy or build better fences.”
He adds: “Pointing isn’t going to collapse if hunting does.”
Back to the pressing issue of workforce, though, and perhaps unsurprisingly, others were not so optimistic. Being a member of a point to-point committee is widely felt to be rather a labour of love, a necessary evil even to some, and part and parcel of supporting the hunt that provides its members with action on horseback all winter long.
Mark Buchan, former Chairman of the Point-to-Point Owners and Riders Association (PPORA) – “cut me and I bleed point-to-point” – made the point that, in the context of the increasing professionalism of the sport, it is already unsustainable to rely on voluntary work.
He says: “Last season I stewarded at nine point-to-points. Sometimes I was driving a couple of hours, at my own expense, to work on the day. Now, while 80% of the participants are amateurs, so many of the trainers are doing it for a living now, jockeys are being paid – albeit unofficially – so I wonder, who is the mug here?”
By contrast, stewards in Ireland are paid, though this is in part due to their point-to-points receiving a much greater sum of funds. That is, in itself, a huge issue faced by British point-to points, and one that, without change, might bring an end to point-to-pointing regardless of a hunting ban.
Buchan adds: “It’s an amateur sport, I’m an amateur steward, and I will apply the rules in an amateur fashion – unless I am paid!”
As point-to-pointing becomes less ‘amateur’ and, therefore, more expensive to run and in need of an increasingly professionalised stewardship, it is hardly a positive if experienced stewards and other volunteers are already beginning to lose their patience.
Fixtures and funding
It is not only the workers, though, who would benefit from a cash injection. The point-to-point fixture list has already suffered the loss of 60 meetings in the last decade because, simply put by
Dawson, “they just can’t make it pay”.
Last month the British Horseracing Authority revealed the launch of a new bonus series for point-to-point horses, worth £250,000, to help maintain the sphere as a developing ground for future stars and enhance the pipeline of good National Hunt horses progressing to race under Rules.” But is it enough?
Buchan states that “funding is the main issue. In my view it needs to go on to more of an Irish system where – and these are approximate calculations – Irish point-to-pointing gets £3 million a year.
That is £1m to the hunts or clubs, £1m for the stewards, and £1m for prize-money.
“We get more like £500,000, of which £425,000 goes to the BHA [to govern the sport]. Point-to-points can get some money for the meetings from the Levy Board, but it’s far from the same story as it is across the Irish Sea.”
He concludes: “Without more funding form the Levy Board, there is no future for pointing without hunts.”
If that is the realistic answer to the question surrounding point-to-pointing’s future, even despite some optimism and initiative, we must now consider the impact on our bloodstock businesses and wider National Hunt racing scene.
Tim Kent, Managing Director of Goffs, does not beat around the bush: an end to pointing would “have a hugely negative impact on the bloodstock market and British National Hunt breeding and racing as a whole.”
He continues: “In Ireland, point-to pointing is used as a really good method to educate young horses and showcase their ability. We need to be doing more of that over here and not less.
“Arguably, we are already at a disadvantage because we don’t have as many opportunities for young horses as they do in Ireland in and France. We’re already on the backfoot; if we lose the ability to run horses in point-to-points, we’re even further behind.
“There’s a gap in our race programme which is already being filled by French horses. It will just mean that more French horses come over here to fill the racing programme.”
He warns: “It will severely disadvantage British breeders, pinhookers and the whole National Hunt breeding industry.”
How, then, do breeding industry players feel about this looming black cloud? Kinsey (left) says: “I would be concerned about the knock-on effect to my business. We need as many people as possible buying young horses from us, whether they are professional trainers or point trainers, and we’ve always had an element of reliance on the point-to-point lads to buy our stores.”
Similarly, Dawson is alarmed by the anticipated decrease in demand for young National Hunt-bred horses for his business if pointing came to a standstill. That said, he does hold out hope that if pointing could continue to a lesser degree, it might encourage the market down “to a more manageable level.” He says: “Horses became too much money and we, as an industry, have made a rod for our own back. It stops people from reinvesting if they have to pay too much.
“The days where you could spend £80,000 on a store and get £300,000 for it as a pointer are gone. Nowadays your £80,000 store might make £120,000 or £130,000, which – for your risk and the fact that it has to win and stay sound – makes the margins tight for the overall outlay. We need a reality check. If the prices come down, more people might be encouraged to invest.”
All in all, this paints a “pretty grim picture” according to Barber, with few realistic ways for point-to-pointing to make it through the mire if we lose hunting for good. Let us not forget, though, that we are not alone in this fight.
Polly Portwin, Director of the Campaign for Hunting at the Countryside Alliance, says: “Point-to-pointing and hunting are intrinsically linked. With a significant percentage of point-to pointing’s volunteer workforce coming from the hunting community, protecting hunting’s future remains vital to ensure that point-to-pointing doesn’t face even greater challenges than it is currently facing.
“Despite the government’s manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting, the Countryside Alliance is campaigning to protect hunts, hounds and the hunting community, and will fight to ensure that any changes in hunting legislation do not threaten the future of hunts and their packs of hounds, nor the future of point to-pointing, which provides an important source of income for many hunts.”
The jury may still be out on whether or not the future is bright, but we can at least all unite on the following: National Hunt racing cannot afford to lose point to-points, and until such a time as the Levy Board increases the amateur sport’s funding, it cannot afford to lose hunting as we currently have no reliable, proven alternative to provide the much-needed cash.
