The champion point-to-point horse is crowned - but not after a case of subterfuge and a secret raid

The 2025-26 point-to-point championship season came to an end on Monday and it involved an awful lot of cloak and dagger in the race to be crowned Connolly’s Red Mills national champion horse.

Ultimately, Luke Price’s Lavorante took the prize, but only after his trainer took him to Chaddesley Corbett in secret and claimed the horse wasn’t running, seemingly leaving the path clear for Clonagoose, trained by Emma Summersby, to win the title.

Lavorante had gone to the top of the leaderboard on Friday, when victory took him alongside Clonagoose and Woodstock Octo on six wins but in pole position having also secured four second places. However, Clonagoose then won again at Upcott Cross on Monday, meaning Price’s closely guarded plan to turn out Lavorante again quickly proved decisive.

I had seen the trainer, who is based in Ynysybwl near Pontypridd in south Wales, in the lorry park at Chaddesley Corbett and he mentioned having two horses ready to run, neither of whom was Lavorante, prompting assumptions the horse wasn’t at the track. However, Lavorante was declared for the men’s open at the last minute and, after Clonagoose’s victory, he duly won again to reclaim top spot.

Price credited jockey James King for the secretive approach, saying: “James kept on saying to me, ‘Don’t tell anyone anything.’ The problem we had was that we had to declare to run before Clonagoose had run; the timings just didn’t go our way. On discovering he had won, we needed to win. We had to roll the dice.”

Lavorante was not only winning for the seventh time during the season; this was also his fourth win in the last five weeks. He finished second behind Jonbon in an Irish point-to-point as a youngster but then made little impression under rules for Gary Moore. A transfer to David Phelan saw his initial introduction to point-to-pointing and he then moved on to Will Biddick, for whom he finished second once and fourth twice under Ella Orttewell, before a private sale to Price.

Lavorante’s achievements since joining Price are testament to his handling and placing of his horses. Indeed, Lavorante’s champion horse title isn’t the only prize he will pick up at the end of the season; he has secured his first trainers’ title in the category for those with six to 14 horses, with a Monday treble taking him to 24 winners for the season.

Luke Price and James King

Price has a remarkable partnership with King, whose role in the Lavorante success story cannot be overstated. The five-time men’s champion has ridden him for nine of his 14 wins between the flags, with former women’s champion Izzie Hill and Edward Vaughan in the saddle on the other occasions.

King said: “Lavorante has been a superstar for us. He's a model of consistency who never lets us down and has now won 14 of his 19 runs. All credit to Luke; he has done a brilliant job.”

King is on 65 winners for the season, close to breaking Will Biddick’s record of 68 in a season having surpassed his previous best of 62 winners from the 2021-22 season, albeit with just one meeting left to go before the season winds up on June 7, Sunday’s sole scheduled fixture at Bratton Down having been abandoned. He added: “I’m close to breaking the record and hopefully Luke and I will team up to help me do that.”

Clonagoose, who won seven of his eight starts this season, and Woodstock Octo, from the Josh Newman stable, had dominated the leaderboard all season. Both are owned by John and Sonia Gardener – in partnership with Torben Hughes in the case of Clonagoose – and John Gardener said: “Clonagoose is so small and has been super, and officially he isn’t even five until July. Luke told us Lavorante wasn’t running, so of course we thought we'd won the title, which for the horse was wonderful. But fair play to Luke, he has done nothing wrong.”

The Gardeners are equally proud of Woodstock Octo’s achievements this season. Woodstock Octo qualified for a £15,000 GB Pointing bonus when he won a maiden in November, which will be triggered if he wins under rules for a British-based trainer within two years of that victory, and connections could consider a transfer to Newman’s wife Kayley Woollacott to attempt to redeem that. Gardener said: “Sonia and I love our pointing, but I guess going under rules is tempting with the bonus available, so we'll see.”

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