OUR annual Clonakilty point-to-point races were started as a millenium event, and have prospered.
Since 2000, Clonakilty has played its role in the sport of horse racing over the jumps.
As a source of horses, riders and trainers, each point-to-point race meeting plays its part in generating the Irish-bred, trained, and ridden horses which have come to dominate at the pinnacle of the sport, internationally.
LARGE ATTENDANCES
Since moving to our present location on Inchydoney Island, generously provided by the Beamish family, we have attracted large attendances.
This has helped in the effort to present Clonakilty as a wonderful place to visit and stay.
Thank you to all who have attended over the years, and of course to our large committee of hard-working volunteers who set up the event each year.
Twenty-five years later, we're driving on again, and we hope you can join us at Inchydoney on Sunday, May 25, at 1pm.
It will be the spring point-to-point season's last weekend, which we share with the two-day Ormond Hunt fixture at Roscrea, Co Tipperary.
This is a prestigious position in the annual fixtures calendar agreed with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, because results at Inchydoney could decide the prestigious annual titles for riders, trainers, etc.
You will see future champs at Inchydoney on May 25. After all, both Aidan O’Brien (now one of the world's top racehorse trainers) and Ruby Walsh (the third most prolific jockey winner in British and Irish jump racing history) commenced their racing careers riding in Irish point-to-points.
The organising committee and guests at this week's 25th anniversary celebration. (Photo: Dave Sheehan/clonphoto)
LOCAL RACING VIPS
At Clonakilty, we have taken the opportunity over the years to honour our own local racing VIPs, such as top horse breeders Pat Tobin, Courtmacsherry, the Dillon family of Clonakilty, and Dan Caverley, Skibbereen.
Jockey Brian Hayes from Rosscarbery was our special guest last year.
We also remember the great horses that ran at Inchydoney over the years.
Ones that come to mind are Draycott Place, runner-up in our Scallys of Clonakilty SuperValu 4yo Maiden at Inchydoney in 2013, going on to accumulate racetrack earnings of about €230,000; and Embittered, third in the same Inchydoney race in 2018, going on to win nearly €160,000, including runs at Aintree and Cheltenham, where he was third in the County Hurdle.
Numerous Cheltenham Gold Cup winners began their careers at Irish point-to-point races, including Best Mate, Cool Ground, Mr Mulligan, War Of Attrition, Denman, Imperial Commander, and Minella Indo.
The same is true of Aintree Grand National winners such as Monty's Pass, Bindaree, Silver Birch, Minella Times, Noble Yeats, Corach Rambler, and Nick Rockett.
So it is no surprise that horses graduating from point-to-point racing have an estimated total annual sales value often exceeding €20m, through the sales ring plus in private sales.
IMPORTANT COMMUNITY EVENT
All around Ireland, the 100 or so point-to-point race meetings each year are an important community event, supported by racing fans to help keep this 273-years old tradition alive.
The first recorded race of this type was in Co Cork, from Buttevant to Doneraile in 1752.
Racing has a long history too in Clonakilty, starting at the Mountain Common, Ardfield, in the 1840s, and carried on at Clogheen towards the end of the 19th Century (in the form of a point-to-point meeting).
Racing continued at Clogheen until 1950, and then continued on the farm of Ted Lowney until 1957.
Fans of our Carbery Foxhounds Clonakilty Point to Point event have followed us faithfully since 2000, from John Kingston's Springmount Farm, a few miles west of the town, where we started; to the Clonakilty Agricultural College, Darrara; and now to Inchydoney Island, on the farm of Leslie Beamish.
The right hand track, with good viewing, overlooks Clonakilty Harbour, and is within a short distance of the island’s Blue Flag beaches and the Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa, one of Ireland's leading resort hotels.
It's a unique racecourse setting, on an island which was joined by causeways to the mainland in the middle of the 19th Century.
