The Gooner puts Carr back on the circuit

Point-to-pointing is good at providing young competitors with a platform, but its door is always open to those who leave and then come back.

Twenty years after Larkhill became the venue for her first ride in a race, and 14 years after quitting the sport on medical advice, Devon-based Jenny Carr was back at the Wiltshire course yesterday, and thrilled by the performance of The Gooner, who she trained to finish second in a division of the restricted race. He is the only pointer among a yard of 32 riding school horses who form a business run by Carr and her mum Mary.

Carr said: “I’m so busy with the riding school I only have time for one pointer, but he is a good one. He’s only got one gear, but I schooled him last week and I thought ‘Oh my God’, I want to ride in races again. He was brilliant – I think he likes the way I train him, always doing something different. We call him Gary, but his real name suits him because he is a goon.”

The Gooner’s career started on a high in Ireland, where he was the impressive winner of a point-to-point for four-year-olds. Subsequently sold at Goffs’ Punchestown Sale for €280,000 he joined Jonjo O’Neill, but apart from a couple of novice hurdle placings he proved below expectations and eventually headed west to join Carr. Last season he ran once for his new trainer, but after pulling up twice this season his run at Larkhill was a marked step up.

Note for people who are not football fans; The Gooner’s name links to Premier League leaders Arsenal, a team formed in 1886 by workers at an armaments factory in Woolwich and which adopted the nickname ‘The Gunners’. Fans of the club proudly call themselves Gooners.

It was at Larkhill’s Avon Vale meeting in April 2006 that Carr first pulled on a set of colours and finished third on the Emely Thompson-trained Polligana in a novice riders’ race – she was in good company for the first two were ridden by Josh Guerriero and Felix De Giles. The following season she found her breakthrough horse in the form of Fleur De Nikos, an eight-year-old mare trained by Alan and Jane Walter and who provided Carr with her first winner when scoring at the sadly missed Welsh racecourse of Llanfrynach. The victory came a week after Carr was waved around the wrong side of the final fence at Bishops Court when clear and set to win on the same horse.

They scored again later in the season, while in 2008 a pair of victories included the ladies’ hunters’ chase at Stratford’s end-of-season meeting. Carr then joined Jonjo O’Neill’s stable and began riding under rules and in point-to-points, yet in 2012 her time as an amateur rider ended as swiftly as they all begin when she fell in a four-runner members’ race.

She said: “I was knocked out, spent a couple of weeks in hospital and was advised by doctors not to ride again. Well, I did ride again, but accepted I couldn’t ride in races. For a few years I stayed away from point-to-pointing – the realisation that I couldn’t ride was awful. Then Jonjo gave me a horse called Forty Five, who was owned by J P McManus and who I had won on at Ludlow. That horse helped me back to health.”

Carr and her mum now run a riding school near Exeter where they teach children to ride – The Gooner lives out with a 32-strong selection of ponies, cobs and horses – but Jenny has an interesting side line which comes around for a hallowed week each March. She said: “I ride out and lead up for Willie Mullins at the Cheltenham Festival. A friend of mine, Scoop [Rachel Robins], who is from Devon but is head girl for Willie, put me in touch.

“Five mornings I ride out two lots and I love it. The horses are such quality. In the afternoons I help lead out. They’ll say ‘Take that one’ and it’s Lossiemouth. It’s brilliant, and they are all such lovely people.”

The Gooner takes a keen interest in Charlie Carr’s ice cream

Looking back she said: “I rode some lovely horses for Jonjo and a couple of winners for J P McManus in amateur races – putting on those colours I just felt ‘Wow’ – but Fleur De Nikos was the one horse that stands out.

“Today’s been brilliant, and worth all the effort. My son Charlie is nine, and he rides Gary in the school. He’ll be riding in pony races next season.”

Carr was absent from the sport for a long time, but if her son grows an interest in it they could be back for many years to come.

*Read Bob Bracher’s full report from Larkhill, coming up on this website