Point-to-Points used to be strictly for fun, with Open races for men or ladies always the feature race. Nowadays, though perhaps not so much as in Ireland, the main interest of focus is the maiden races, with the most often asked question of the owner or trainer not where does he run next but how much do you hope to get for him at the sales. Point-to-Points are becoming in this country far more a fingerpost towards the sales ring than a gay and sporting family day out. When a horse goes from its maiden to the sales ring, perhaps the Hunt that staged the meeting and even perhaps the landowner, should receive 5% of the sales price from the lucky owner, in order to boost their coffers. Point-to-Points are very much a mainstay of the sporting countryside and those who are prepared to put their shoulder to the wheel to ensure the ‘amateur’ side of the sport can continue should receive a bonus now and again for both their effort and for use of their land.
Back in the day, when I lived in East Anglia, there was a horse I was involved in who went by the name Mischievous Jack. He was headstrong and wilful, homebred out of a mare who won a point-to-point when she finished alone and after Jack she bred a few nice-looking horses, none of which troubled the judge. Jack, though, somehow, won a selling hurdle at Huntingdon and was retained by his tearful owner/breeder.
This was not an ambitious outfit, just a man who loved being involved with racehorses, who worked long hours in the family business to afford his expensive hobby. He certainly was not excited by the hunting side of the exercise.
If Jack were trained at Lambourn and not on a small-holding/farm in East Anglia, where the training facilities were plentiful and where there were riders of experience and great skill in the saddle, Jack might have gone on to great things and you would not need to look him up to gain a grasp of the background of this story. Because, though, he was a right boyo, with a mind of his own, he might also have been too much trouble to be worth keeping.
He had the dexterity and wilfulness to escape his stable, not in the conventional way of unbolting the door but by half-jumping, half-slithering over the door. If he did not want to go anywhere, and on his own he never wanted to go anywhere, he had no compunction about rearing, bucking or throwing himself on the ground. He could pull people around, put them on the ground, hurt them, if not fatally, and was an all-round bully. He always needed a lead-horse. In the stable, when being dressed-over, for the sheer hell of it, he would let fly with his back legs, not to hurt, not even to graze. His saving grace was that he could gallop, all day, it seemed, if he had a lead horse.
Having won a selling hurdle, he was not qualified for maiden point-to-points, and was restricted to restricted races. In his first race, which was at Higham, he whipped round at the start, lost a good thirty lengths and yet by halfway he was in front, and then he fell, ran off the course and was found half-a-mile away in someone’s vegetable garden. It was not reported what he was chomping on but it was something prize-winning, or so the guy on the tannoy announced. He also requested that someone go retrieve him, quickly.
On his second run, he jumped off-okay and fell early on. His jockey reported him a ‘handful’ and suggested a more severe bit and a cross-noseband. The jockey was experienced, the best in East Anglia and now the father of jockeys. But someone close to the owner knew better and the jockey was horrified when he realised what was in Jack’s mouth the next time he ran. Unfortunately, it was only when he was released to go down to the start when he discovered all he had to steer by was a rubber bit, the complete opposite to what he had advised. 
This race was a Men’s Open as there were no suitable races for weeks to come and Jack by now was close to being fit, though not so fit it was affecting his naughty streak. In the race, he settled beautifully, jumped like a buck and led an experienced field of horses for 2-miles of the race, until …
A horse had fallen early on, managed to jump into the centre of the course, where he scattered spectators left, right and centre. Eager to be part of the race again, this felon jumped back on to the course, sideswiping Jack, almost turning him 90% and effectively putting him out of the race. The jockey wanted to pull-up. He should have pulled-up with the race gone. Jack, though, rarely took his orders from his riders and he took the rubber bit between his teeth and set-off, perhaps in pursuit of the other runners, though more likely wanting to get his own back on the miscreant who had assaulted him, and within three fences had latched on to the leading bunch. Then he tired and the decision to pull-up was made by both the jockey and the horse in unison.
To Be Continued (Perhaps tomorrow).