I went to the Woodland Pytchley point-to-point yesterday. I used to go to points-to-points regularly but this is the first I’ve attended for well over a decade.
Points-to-points are rather low key, low quality steeplechases organised by local hunts. All the horses and jockeys have to have ‘gone’ fox-hunting to be qualified – but this might just mean turning up and getting their card stamped and then going home.
We had a good time and I picked the winners of the first four races – the fourth race was a walk-over (only one horse entered) so you could have got that one too!
My single bet was on the second race – a horse called Sandpiper’s but it wasn’t the bird-related name that attracted me. There were seven bookmakers present and taking generally small bets of £2-£5 on the races. The market isn’t very strong. Sandpipers was the favourite of the four runners – the others being around 5/2, 4/1 and 4/1. One bookmaker had the favourite at 1/2 (you give him £1 and if you win you get £1.50 back, ie winnings of 50p) and was short on the favourite throughout, which I found interesting. He can hardly have taken a single bet on that horse (which suggested he was fairly sure that the other three couldn’t win). The other six bookies’ odds on the favourite changed between 8/11 and 4/7. I was prepared to have £60 at 4/6 but was waiting to see whether 8/11 would appear. When it did, a quicker investor bet £100 and the bookie wiped off the 8/11 and chalked up 8/13. When 8/11 appeared down the row then I was a bit quicker and invested £55 and therefore won £40 a few minutes later when the favourite won after the leader rather inexplicably lost its momentum before the last fence. It wasn’t the only race won by a horse who ran better than it jumped yesterday.
So one bet paid for the day out. Yippee!
There was a Red Kite over the course when we arrived too.
So was this a very political outing? Not for me. Although there is a connection with fox-hunting, it amounted to a picnic in a field, and a look at the betting and the racing for me. Given that you aren’t allowed to kill foxes with hounds these days then I don’t consider myself to be making a political statement by attending a point-to-point – so anyone using attendance at these events as support for a renewal of fox hunting – please remove ‘one’ from the numbers.
I should think that most of the attendees at this event probably are quite keen on fox-hunting but I’m only going by their Range Rovers, accents and general appearance so I may be completely wrong. For many it was clearly an opportunity to meet up with friends and their labradors, to have a drink (red or white? (although I was shocked by the numbers of foreign bottled beers being drunk)) and have a picnic and an ice-cream.
But for some it was quite political. There were announcements over the public address system entreating us to visit the Vote OK tent where we could learn which of our candidates on 7 May would be in favour of removing the ban on fox-hunting. When I looked toward the said tent it was empty apart from some disconsolate folk looking neglected and ignored. Apparently Peter Bone (the former Conservative MP, now candidate, for Wellingborough), and Philip Hollobone (the former Conservative MP, now candidate, for Kettering) and Tom Pursglove (Conservative candidate, who can rely on not getting my vote in Corby as I will be voting for Andy Sawford) had made brief appearances there.
There were bigger queues for ice-cream and beer than for political intelligence.
I know that some people who support my position on banning grouse shooting will be unhappy that I attend horse races, and I know that some who attend horse races will be unhappy that I seek to ban driven grouse shooting. Well, both groups can fight it out between themselves on that but I will think for myself and go my own way, thanks very much. There is no organisation which I support, not the RSPB, the Labour Party, the BBC, the Wildlife Trusts, the Guardian or the World Land Trust, with which I agree completely (although, come to think of it, I can’t think there is anything with which I disagree with Butterfly Conservation – maybe I could find something if I looked very hard). Any political party or conservation organisation with which I agreed completely would have a membership of one – me!
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I adore horse sports and feel sorry about any connection to hunting but hope it continues to be a largely historical one. I made a rare purchase of Horse and Hound this week because it had a focus on showjumping and noticed it featured a rallying cry to vote for a party which would repeal the hunting ban. Sad.
Janice – thank you for your comment.
I’m not sure why you hold Butterfly Conservation in such high regard. This is an organisation that trashes land by cutting down young trees/shrubs and sticking livestock on it, as seen with the high brown fritillary.
Conservation should be about protecting or restoring dynamic, functioning ecosystems so that natural processes can flourish, not simplifying land for the benefit of one species.
Well, it may look like ‘trashing land to benefit one species’ to you, but what about the slightly less emotive (and nearer the truth) ‘holding back succession on rapidly disappearing grasslands to support a range of species that are themselves in decline’? That’s what I think Butterfly Conservation are doing anyway!
I don’t suppose that anyone would argue with the idea of restoring dynamic functioning ecosystems and natural processes but it is an unavoidable fact that species that use early succession habitats will require management to intervene in succession from time to time if they are not to disappear altogether.
I think that your use of the term ‘trashing land’ is unjustified and would suggest that the removal of some shrubs and young trees to favour species requiring open habitats hardly creates a shortage of shrubs and trees. I believe that action that targets species such as the High Brown Fritillary or the Duke of Burgundy is justified in its own right but would suggest that it is rarely only a single species that benefits from such actions.
A good bit of ‘trashing’ and I think that’s a fair name for it is not necessarily all bad.
Packs of canines marauding round the countryside, bulldozers ripping up the earth and knocking down trees – sounds bad but if those canines are wolves and the bulldozers are large herbivores maybe not so bad. Take a large enough area of woodland and drive a real bulldozer – or a pack of hounds through it, or perhaps use a few chainsaws and cut down/coppice a few trees now and again and you might actually increase biodiversity.
PTP must be the only sport that in election years invariably feels the need to shove Conservative politics down its’ paying customers throats. Talk about contempt for your audience.
I like PTP and usually do 10 or more PTP meets per year but they lose my support in election years. The hectoring just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.
The argument around hunting has become rather ridiculous. Most hunts trail hunt which means that until and unless they actually catch up with what is making the trail they have no idea what it is. If they are illegally hunting – well they shouldn’t – but why on earth would they when they can trail hunt. If they are really desperate for a few foxes to be killed well it seems they are. But why kill a fox deliberately like that? Hounds kill the foxes not people.
Anti hunters might not like it but if a few foxes are being killed by packs of hounds so what? Compare fox hunting to other activities like for example car driving and it pales into insignificance. Car driving’s impact on the environment and on animal welfare is many many times greater than fox hunting. Cars kill around 100,000 foxes a year in an absolutely brutal manner as well as many badgers, hedgehogs, deer, birds, amphibians and other wildlife and also a fair few people! What’s more take a look on the average roadside verge, the stuff these people throw out of their windows beggars belief!
Or how about shooters? We are told that shooting badgers with practically military grade rifles under controlled conditions isn’t humane – and yet any elmer fudd can wander out into the country side and blast a leg of a lactating vixen and it’s a humane alternative to fox hunting – how is that? If I was hobbling round the countryside with a gangrenous foot or waiting in the den thirsty as hell for mummy to come home I might not agree.
And no just as car drivers shouldn’t be deliberately running down wildlife hunts shouldn’t be deliberately hunting and killing foxes with dogs. But they don’t need to. They can bludgeon to death 1,000,000 + wild mammals by accident why do it deliberately and risk prosecution?
Conservation in the UK needs to be less controlling and to move away from favouring species that need heavily managed, degraded habitats to survive.
“Scrub” supports much more life (by providing food and shelter for mammals, birds and insects) and trophic diversity compared to open, grazed habitats.
I disagree. Scrub is, of course, ecologically valuable in its own right but we have plenty of it and no-one is trying to eliminate it entirely from the landscape. If we allowed all open habitats to ‘scrub-up’ we would in many cases lose rare and specialised communities and replace them with things that are abundant and widespread and would experience a net loss. We would lose beautiful orchids, butterflies, bees, grasshoppers, beetles and more and replace them, in may cases, with hawthorn and a few blackbirds (ok I may be exaggerating but only a bit).
We live in a highly modified environment and cannot rely on natural processes such as fire, flood and large herbivores to maintain diversity as may have been the case in pre-human times. Pre-twentieth century farming and woodland management practices inadvertently mimicked some of those natural processes to some extent and maintained a patchwork of habitats for the likes of the High Brown Fritillary, but such practices have died out and without deliberate carefully planned interventions we would lose these species. I for one would consider that a terrible loss and a dereliction of duty.
well said!
Jonathan – what I would like is less interference with natural processes. I take little pleasure from seeing land trapped in a state of arrested development thanks to interventions like grazing and cutting down trees. I realise that managing nature is not going to stop, for one thing there is too much money involved from lucrative agri-environmental schemes, but surely there can be room for more non-intervention areas?
You mentioned losing orchids, bees and butterflies, but I wonder how they survived before we came along to wrap them in cotton wool? Farming is one of the main reasons for the decline of so much wildlife so why try and replicate it on nature reserves?
” I wonder how they survived before we came along”
because of activities like grazing and trees getting killed
1/2 5/2 4/1 and 4/1? If they were all on the same board that’s a book of 135.24. Wasn’t taking any chances was he? Must have known there was a shrewdie in the ring.
Peter – you clearly know your stuff. The 5/2 went out to 3/1 and there was some 9/2 about – but it’s still a healthy over-round – but then again, there wasn’t a lot of money around so it’s understandable.