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Other than the now infrequent correspondent Graysonscolumn I don’t know who else on TRF are avid followers of Point-to-Points and Hunter Chasers but I, having a cursory interest in the latter, found this news a little sad
[i:3v4u2d77]Acclaimed pointing annual to be scaled down
BY RODNEY MASTERS 2:11PM 26 AUG 2014
ONE of racing’s longest established publications is to be scaled down to a results and statistics service in an attempt to make it viable.
Future editions of the Hunter Chasers & Point-To-Pointers annual will no longer carry essays on every runner of the previous season, a chapter that occasionally incensed owners and trainers of the horses involved but at the same time entertained many readers.
First published in 1960, the annual has been losing money recently for its owner, The Point-to-Point Racing Company, an offshoot of Weatherbys. It is understood sales had dropped to fewer than 500 from a modern-day peak of 3,500.
A spokeswoman said: “Unfortunately we’ve had to drop the horse comments. We’ve tried lots of things, including making it a paperback, but sales were dropping year on year and that couldn’t continue.”
Here is a taste of the, er, pointed comments from down the years in the Hunter Chasers & Point-To-Pointers annual
1972 Royal Crest Hates pointing, and is a waste of time
1974 New House After the race he smashed into a sports car, jumped a stone wall and fell into a pond. Can go a bit, but does not impress
1975 Labyrinth Wears a mass of severe tack [all ineffective] and is highly dangerous
1976 Melancholy Rose Has plenty of ability but the antithesis of her most courageous dam, and always doing her utmost to stop. Ruining the sport for others and should be retired
1982 Luctig Must be the slowest horse in regular training – an embarrassment to his jockeys
1987 Karablake His revival was an unmitigated disaster, and the inexperienced jockey was totally unable to cope
1999 Scally Beau Putting a bolting mare to Scallywag was the sort of experiment Frankenstein would have treasured, and has so far finished a remote last in all three races
2001 Thomas Crown May have trouble staying, although it could be just the veteran rider running out of puff
2007 Bucksareback Foolishly risked on firm in his Members, unsurprisingly hating every moment and jumping very slowly. Although quickly tailed off, his rider insisted on bumping all the way to the finish and once she had finally got off he was hobbling badly. A great and totally avoidable shame[/i:3v4u2d77]I have collected a number of these from what I considered to be the vintage period when the likes of Titus Oates and The Dikler began their careers.
As of now it is much more disappointing that the Irish don’t seem to be able to produce an annual on a regular basis. Crazy if you think many of their points are better than races under rules over here.
I rather guessed it would go this way eventually. The standard hadn’t been so good of late and the comments were certainly a good deal more restrained. The Point-to-Point Company tried to ‘get clever’ with it and changing the formula didn’t work.
One particular favourite of mine went along the lines of ‘Carried 17 stone to the first in his Members and deposited it there!’
Rob
The final true edition of Hunter Chasers and Point to Pointers was 2012.
The last two seasons it has been titled "Pointing 2013" and " Pointing 2014" and hasn’t featured "Mackenzie & Harris" in the title. It is a mixture of the old format and the "Point to Point Results and Form" annual that Weatherbys Chase used to publish, up until 2007 I think.
The results section in the 2013 annual was rubbish – just the finishing order given with the comments in running only printed in the form section for each horse. Not ideal having to go back and forth from one section to another to find out what happened in each race. This was rectified in the 2014 annual.
Looks like they will be going back to the Results and Form format for the 2015 annual.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Extract of a letter received today from The Point-To-Point Racing Company:
£20
plus p&p.
Orders can be made online at http://www.weatherbysshop.co.uk/point-point or telephone
01933 304792
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
The above returned from the printers on Friday so it can be ordered with impunity now.
What’s in it? I can’t be entirely certain, as I have not seen a draft and would have to refer you to the above poster’s blurb from the PtPRC website.
What I’m fairly sure about, however, is that there’s little editorial to speak of. Certainly I wasn’t asked to provide either a general review of the 2013-14 season or a summary of each administrative Area this time; nor were Martin Harris and Paul Champion asked to provide any horse-by-horse comments.
It’s made for a quieter summer writing-wise, albeit a sadder one, as no engagement I’ve held in racing has given me greater pleasure.
The
Annual
represented a huge undertaking for something that was barely nudging 500 sales at its end, however, and the decision must have been taken that the means no longer justified the ends.
I can’t imagine that it was ever the intention for sales of other PtPRC products to have to subsidise losses incurred on the
Annual
. I can’t personally credit that the book was genuinely losing £250,000, the figure given in the
Post
article – that was more likely either a misprint, or rather maybe the cumulative figure since 2001-2, when the PtPRC in its Weatherbys Chase guise first published it.
Either way, even that loss figure spread evenly since 2001-2 would have required sales of a good few
Loose-Leaf
results,
ViewPoint
video channel subscriptions, etc. to absorb.
What I also don’t know is how sharply the sales fell from the 3,500 peak cited in the
Post
article, or even when that peak was. It’s academic to an extent, I suppose, as without the intervention of Weatherbys when the previous publishers Chase Publications was knocked sideways by the foot and mouth-curtailed 2001 Pointing season, the
Annual
might feasibly have ended there and then (higher sales at the time notwithstanding). It’s easy to count 2002 onwards as a second life for the publication.
Nevertheless, maybe some recourse to book sales figures, if they exist publicly, could help inform all of us whether the declining sales latterly constituted the cause or the effect of the removal of the more salty comments that polarised opinion both for and against.
Alternatively, they may tell us no such thing – the Pointing fanbase, as with that of racing generally, is likely an ageing one, and the pool of prospective buyers of the
Annual
may just gradually be dwindling through natural causes.
All 100% conjecture on my part, though, you understand, as I’m not and never have been close enough to any of the decisions concerning the
Annual
‘s survival to offer a more authoritative analysis.
Doubtless, though, I’ll definitely acquire a copy of the new publication.
What’s in there will still be invaluable, and the stats in particular will be pored over in miniscule detail to corroborate my own (compiled as the season progresses, so open to the odd small mistake) with the PtPRC’s.
You can also blame me for the new publication’s comments in running for just under 10% of all the meetings that took place last season, plus a number of the updated course descriptions, but beggared if I’m telling you which.
Right, enough of that. Black Forest Lodge five weeks this Sunday, anyone?
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
What’s in it? I can’t be entirely certain, as I have not seen a draft
Received a copy today, contents as follows:
50 pages of statistics.
100 pages listing each horse that ran during the season with breeding plus a string of lifetime form figures. No more, no less information than that. Not sure how much use this is as there is no reference to the results section.
325 pages of results. Well presented with clear concise in running comments.
35 pages of course maps and information.
5 pages of fixtures for the coming season.
In addition I received a 76 page " A-Z Horse Index" booklet. This is the index with race references to the results section for each horse. No idea why this is a separate publication. Surely this should have been included in the form book after the results section
I can’t believe this was intentional, so must have been an oversight. Clearly this is something that, hopefully, should be rectified next year.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
A separate index? Hmmm. If it includes each horse’s Harris rating, its form, its connections and the race number for each of its 2013-14 outings, then that sounds like the index that appears in the final edition of that season’s
Loose-Leaf Update
. It’ll be fully comprehensive, if nothing else, though at this remove the need for this to be issued separately just escapes me a bit.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
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