New fixtures’ chief knows a winner

To complete Badminton horse trials on four occasions requires planning, training, skill and stamina.

Beverley Thomas – who actually negotiated that event’s demanding cross-country phase five times – should therefore be well suited to her new role as chair of the Point-to-Point Secretaries’ Association (PPSA), a position she gained when Ilona Barnett stood down at the conclusion of last season. Thomas (pictured above) now has a key role in the composition of fixtures and assisting the secretaries without whom point-to-points would not take place, and she also takes a seat on the decision-making Point-to-Point Authority (PPA) Board.

Living in Gloucestershire, but having resided in West Wales for many years, Thomas was area secretary in that region and stayed at her post when it amalgamated to create one area for all of Wales. She also has experience in owning and training point-to-pointers – and very successfully. GB Pointing’s database, which goes back to the 2005 season, shows that from then until she concluded training in 2019/20 she saddled 50 winners and 52 placed horses from 197 point-to-point runners, an excellent win ratio of 25 per cent. However, she began training eight years before the database opened and is thought to have saddled some 80 winners  in total.

During a busy few days involving a PPA board meeting and visit to the Royal Welsh Show, Thomas says: “My mother was very keen on hunting and rode with the Pembrokeshire until she was in her 70s, but eventing was my thing. I think my top placing at Badminton was thirteenth or fourteenth, although one year I did win the Beaufort Spurs given to the best cross-country round by a person under 25.”

Her interest in pointing came about after a chance trip to Lydstep races during a period when she was living back with her parents on recuperation after an operation. She says: “I was working in Warminster [Wiltshire] as assistant editor at Eventing magazine, but returned home to rest after surgery and while there realised my parents were not quite coping and needed help around the farm. So I stayed.

“Going to a point-to-point one day I watched a race in which a horse refused at the last, and another runner, which had unseated and been remounted – as you could in those days – came past to win. I had just hung up my eventing boots and thought ‘I could train a horse to do this’.

“There were quite a few point-to-points in Pembrokeshire at that time, so I bought a little mare called Baby Whale and trained her to win three races.”

Thomas and Bradley Gibbs enjoy a winning moment at Kingston Blount in May when I’m Like A Lion carried her colours to victory

That was in 1998 when Baby Whale, ridden by Evan Williams, scored at Erw Lon, Lydstep and Pantyderi, happy memories for those who remember a trio of venues which have since closed.

“I then started training pointers for other people,” says Thomas “and did that for about ten years, getting up to 16 horses and having a good bit of success. However, I reached a point where I either had to put in some gallops – because I was trashing the farm – stay as I was or stop. I thought ‘I’ve had fun, it’s time to stop’, so I did, more or less overnight, although I kept one little horse called Seaniethesmuggler going for one more season.”

Five years later a horse called Moral Hazard was handed to Thomas on turn out while recovering from a tendon injury, but she ended up keeping him and over the next few years saddled him to win seven of 13 races, initially under John Mathias and then Bradley Gibbs. Three years later another pointer, Captain McGinley, added to Thomas’s record by winning a qualifying point-to-point before finishing second in the Connolly’s Red Mills Intermediate Final hunters’ chase at Cheltenham.

Then Covid arrived, and with pointing in Wales having been brought to a complete halt Thomas retired Moral Hazard and sent Captain McGinley to Gibbs who was still riding, but also training from stables in Hertfordshire.

Both horses had been owned in partnership with Adrian Simpson, a regional director for the Countryside Alliance, and who shared the most promising and possibly best horse with which Thomas was involved, namely Theshoddytradesman.

Thomas says: “We had really high hopes for Theshoddytradesman and thought he might take us to the Foxhunters’ Chase.” After four impressive victories under Gibbs the then seven-year-old was sent off the 2/1 favourite for Cheltenham’s intermediate final, but was pulled up with an injury from which he failed to recover. Simpson died last year, still convinced he had missed out on a winner at the Cheltenham Festival.

Theshoddytradesman (Bradley Gibbs), a horse of untapped talent, on his way to victory at Chipley Park

Returning to her involvement in the administration of the sport, Thomas says she was guided by one of point-to-pointing’s most committed servants, Cynthia Higgon, who died two years ago aged 86 having given so many years of service on a national as well as regional level.

Thomas says: “Being Cynthia I had to do a very long probation service, but after a couple of years she decided I was fit to take over. She and I are the only two West Wales area secretaries.”

Thomas then became joint-secretary for the whole of Wales, but in September last year, having completed the sale of her family farm, she moved to the Cotswolds, a more central location and one which will lessen many journeys when she travels Britain in her new role next season. She says: “When Ilona took over as chair she asked me to be vice chair and I believed that would be where it would end as Nick Bostock [a BHA racecourse judge and senior figure in the former North West Area] was also vice chair and I thought he would step up. However, he is rather busy with his judging work and it left me as the most likely candidate, although we did ask others to put their name forward.” She says, modestly: “I was the last man standing.”

Captain McGinley after winning under Gibbs at Monmouth Showground in 2019 – joint-owner Adrian Simpson, who shared a number of winners with Thomas, is third from the left

The PPSA is “absolutely crucial” says Thomas, reasoning: “Each area has its collection of fixtures and so the PPSA is the link between those fixtures and the PPA. When I first started as an area secretary and the PPA was formed individual secretaries were not allowed to contact the PPA and had to go through their area secretary. We’ve moved on from that, but if we weren’t there doing the admin, a bit like area  managers, it would involve a new salaried person, so we are saving the sport money.

“Having local knowledge is pretty invaluable at times. Some meetings are run by secretaries who do so with an iron fist, others by a committee, and the area secretary knows who is doing what and how each meeting works.”

Getting the fixtures to fit the horse population is one of the sport’s biggest challenges. Fine spring weather brings in spectators, but if there are too many meetings in a short period there are not enough horses to create meaningful racing. A spread of fixtures from the start of the season in November creates racing opportunities for all and thereby encourages ownership of point-to-pointers.

Thomas says: “Ilona put in an incredible amount of work on this subject before I took over. We have managed to pull some fixtures out of the busy Easter period and we have moved on again and now have more meetings before Christmas. We are very reluctant to tell fixtures they cannot have a meeting on a certain date and we do our level best to fit everyone in, but it is getting more difficult with springs and early summers that are creating ground that is getting firmer earlier.

“Once the ground starts drying horse numbers begin diminishing [turned away for a break until the following season] at just the time when fixtures want to put on racing to get the picnic crowd. It is challenging, but we don’t want to lose fixtures because we don’t know what the future will bring.”

That future involves a long-standing question mark over hunts and their ability to remain functional while carrying out trail hunting. Hunts help stage the majority of point-to-points, but with a new Prime Minister taking the reins of power on Monday the position is no clearer.

There have been many changes in the sport since the turn of the century, but few more markedly than marketing. Handy roadside advertising boards informing the public of a forthcoming fixture retain importance, but digital information, be that through websites, social media or databases of customers, has a vital part to play.

Used positively it can be a source for good, but it also creates a sounding board for criticism, some of it naïve or misinformed. Thomas says: “We are all doing our best for the sport, but rather than attacking online why not get involved in the sport? Help to make things better, either at a fixture or area level. Every meeting is looking for volunteers to help run the fixture, and by getting involved you are more likely to have access to those people who are making decisions.

“We do accept criticism, but I don’t like seeing young people being targeted. They are perhaps more sensitive to it than those of us who are older and have learned to cope with it. I would say to those who are about to fire off or be abusive, just think about who you are targeting and what position they are in at any given time.”

Thomas retains an optimism borne from many great days in the sport, and she says: “It’s hard to get new people into the sport, but they invariably enjoy the day out. Syndicates have a huge part to play in getting people involved, many for the first time, and we do encourage trainers to try and form syndicates.

“I’m in a little syndicate with Bradley that had a horse last season. Practice Run isn’t a world beater, but he invariably got into the winner’s enclosure and we all had a lot of fun every time he ran. I said at the start of the season, win, lose or draw we will go out to enjoy ourselves and we did.”

Practice Run had plenty of practice, running eight times last season at seven different courses and providing his owners with a geographical jaunt as well as a trip to the races. It also provided Thomas’s sat-nav with a good work out ahead of what will be a busy 2026/27 season for the new chair of the PPSA.