Hard work pays off at Britain’s two newest point-to-point courses

Britain’s two newest point-to-point courses will see a few adjustments when they stage racing next spring.

The Cattistock Hunt’s venue at Chilfrome in Dorset (pictured above) and the Devon & Somerset Staghounds’ South Hill racecourse in Somerset opened their doors for the first time earlier this year. They raced on consecutive days, but will be a month apart in 2023.

Cattistock secretary Nicky Atkinson says: “Our meeting will be on Saturday, April 1, which we hope means we won’t have to water and can race on a totally natural surface. It also means we won’t be clashing with a group of other meetings in the Wessex area and Devon and Cornwall, and by racing a month earlier there should be more horses still in training.”

The Cattistock opened Chilfrome with a maiden race over two and a half miles and drew ten runners, but other races proved less popular and among horses who stayed on their boxes was Southfield Theatre, who went on to become the Connolly’s RED MILLS champion point-to-pointer.

Atkinson said: “We’ve always cantered our own horses up there [at Chilfrome], but this year the weather was exceptionally dry. Watering should have worked, but the ground there is very different from Seaborough [the hunt’s former venue of Littlewindsor]. You learn the differences about the various courses.

“We’ve had very good feedback and realise it was a mistake to start with a two-and-a-half-mile race – the jockeys went flat out and the horses didn’t get home. One of the senior jockeys said it took them four races to work out how to ride the course. For the next meeting we will be looking at possible alterations around the course including looking at the position of the last fence and the finishing line. We’ve already placed an order for more birch for the fences.

“You don’t learn about such things until you try them, but financially the day was a success because we had good support, plenty of helpers and a big crowd with slightly more cars than we expected. The vehicle our caterers were coming in broke down, but for the next meeting we will have back up.

“I know I will be slightly more relaxed next time. After two years with no meeting due to Covid I was nervous about putting on a meeting, but we got through it.”

Runners jump Chilfrome’s final fence although it could be repositioned for the next meeting **photo Carl Evans

It was a similar story at South Hill, which the Devon & Somerset Staghounds used for the first time after exiting Holnicote. Secretary Linda Pugsley says: “There is a tremendous amount of work involved in moving to a new course, and we were rusty after missing two years, but we were amazed we got as much right as we did.

“We will be changing a few things, including the crossing places for the public and the position of toilets, but as far as the course is concerned we had few problems. We might alter the top bend slightly, but that is about it.

“We watered after weeks of dry weather, then woke up on the day of the meeting to find it was pouring with rain, which would have put off the picnickers. However, the day stood up financially and on the whole we were very lucky.

“We didn’t have big fields but each race was competitive, the feedback was positive and the course is on lovely old turf that hasn’t been ploughed in living memory. We’ve also got great views of Exmoor.

“Next season we are racing on the same weekend, but Easter was very late last year and was followed soon after by a Bank Holiday.

“We couldn’t have opened a new course in our own country without the help of a lot of supporters, and the local course inspector, Norman Chanin, had opened the course at Dunsmore a few years ago and he was a great help.”

Dr Rhythm and Josh Newman on their way to claim the Members at the D&S Stags meeting at South Hill this season  **photo Tim Holt