Hunt races are struggling and that impacts point committees' bottom lines so it's time to deploy them differently

They say you only need two horses to make a race. That may be so, but it is never the desired outcome.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what transpired at Umma House on Sunday, when the adjacent hunt winners’ race, the concluding event on the card, was a match between Knockiel Synge and Fiadh’s Ruby. A field of just two was hardly unexpected after the race had attracted a paltry three initial entries, and it is perhaps an example of some of the challenges facing the sport.

Adjacent and confined hunt races have long symbolised the close connection that exists between the hunting community that supplies the volunteer manpower to run the point-to-point fixtures and the racing industry itself, to which point-to-pointing is so central. This particular hunt race at the South Westmeath Hunt’s fixture has a tradition that stretches back decades, principally as a race confined to subscribers of the South Westmeath’s own hunt, before, like many hunts, it was forced to open the race up to adjacent hunts in order to keep it alive due to dwindling numbers.