Former jump jockey Noel Fehily (pictured above) is hoping to make his training debut on Saturday, while his ex-colleague Jason Maguire is expected to do so 24 hours later.
A version of this article first appeared in the Racing Post on Friday 20th January.
Both men now operate breaking and pre-training yards, but also handle a couple of pointers whose job is to provide racing experience for staff. Wiltshire-based Fehily plans to run maiden Parsons Pleasure and useful ex-handicap chaser Pride Of Lecale at Larkhill with the aim of providing Daniel Williams, 17, with an introduction to race riding. Fehily says: “Daniel comes from a showjumping background and works in the yard so the aim is to give him a bit of experience.”
Maguire, whose yard is in Gloucestershire, has entered 13-year-old Barney Dwan in Sunday’s ladies’ race at Cocklebarrow, where he could also saddle Cheltenam De Vaige in the Lord Ashton of Hyde’s Cup. Maguire says: "We have a couple of older horses for the staff in the yard to have a go on, so it is a bit of fun.”
A change here can have a knock-on effect there. In 2016 the obligation for point-to-pointers to attend hunts each season was dropped, a decision not without criticism but one that opened the sport to owners or trainers who did not have time or inclination to follow hounds. An increasing number of licensed and pre-trainers formerly in the ‘too-busy’ category now keep pointers for their staff to ride.
Core breeders
It was a pleasure to watch the mare Glimpse Of Gala showing tenacity when winning a Pertemps Hurdle qualifier at Warwick a week last Saturday for Charlie Longsdon’s yard.
Bred in Oxfordshire by Fran and Chris Marriott, and leased by them to a syndicate, she traces her family back to Windfall (foaled 1968) who was purchased as a point-to-pointer by the Marriotts. Chris rode regularly in points, but says Windfall was regarded by his wife as “too valuable” to allow him to take the reins and so she was partnered in races by Diana Thorne (later Henderson) and Sally Gill (Lawney Hill’s mother), who was one of the first women to reach the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham when riding the mare to finish third in a maiden hunters’ chase. That came some five weeks after Gillian Fortescue-Thomas had, on March 18, 1976, become the first woman to ride at Cheltenham. As a bonus she also reached the frame, having finished second on Stanhope Street in the Cathcart Champion Hunters’ Chase, beaten 12l by Mickley Seabright.
Chris Marriott, owner of foundation mare Windfall and many of her descendents
The decision to buy Windfall has led to more than 50 years of fun and appellations with apples. Her foals included Miss Crabapple, who bred Apple Days. the dam of Glimpse Of Gala, who is now the second-highest rated horse from Windfall’s lineage after Old Applejack, who won 13 chases for Howard Johnson.
On Sunday at Cocklebarrow the Marriotts plan to run Pomme De Nuit – who Chris describes as “the disappointment of the family” – in the members’ race.
Few breeders of jumpers set out to foal a point-to-pointer, the goal for most being to produce a hurdler or chaser. Robert Abrey and Ian Thurtle bred Edwardstone from point-to-point mare Nothingtoloose, whose form was 1PPPP5, yet they would have been content if she had merely produced successful pointers. As is often said, a winner is a winner at any level.
