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Point-to-pointing’s bid to create a better spread of fixtures through the season has taken a step forward.

Publication of the Point-to-Point Secretaries’ Association’s provisional fixtures’ list shows that three fixtures have moved forward from the New Year and will be staged in November, while Umberleigh’s Torrington Farmers’ meeting, which long heralded the finale in June, but has been abandoned in each of the past two seasons, will try a Wednesday fixture in April. There will be no meetings after the official cut-off date of Bank Holiday Monday, May 31 because Bratton Down has opted to hold two, not three meetings in 2027.

Paul Miller, chief executive of the Point-to-Point Authority said: “A lot of work has gone into this behind the scenes, work that has been carried out by former PPSA secretary Ilona Barnett and by her successor, Beverley Thomas.

“This will be the second season in a three-year plan to ease congestion [in the spring] and we are pleased with what has been achieved so far.”

PPA chief executive Paul Miller, ‘pleased with what has been achieved so far’ (Ce)

The provisional list reveals that Lower Machen in South Wales will again kick the new season off, but a week earlier on Sunday, November 1. Knightwick Races in Worcestershire, which had to be abandoned last season, will race the following weekend when it will be joined by a meeting of the South Pool Harriers at Buckfastleigh (pictured top of page). That fixture has moved from mid-February.

Two weeks later, on Sunday, November 22, pre-Christmas racing will take place at Shelfield Park in Warwickshire for the first time. Shelfield Park’s Croome & West Warwickshire meeting was held on April 11 last season.

Trebudannon will also stage an earlier meeting when the South Cornwall fixture takes place on November 28. Last season it was held on March 29. The Puckeridge & Essex meeting which was scheduled for November last year at Horseheath, but failed to take place, has been removed from the list, although the organising hunt is still set to hold its High Easter meeting in April.

Point-to-pointing in the Northern Area has held up well and that region will welcome back the Tynedale fixture at Corbridge, which will take place in mid-March, and while the venue of Askham Bryan in Yorkshire does not appear in the provisional fixtures’ list The York & Ainsty & West Of Yore meeting is set to go ahead at Charm Park on the final weekend in January.