The Ballybreen Fox represents British point-to-pointing's new wave at February Sale

Hannah Clarke is familiar with the shape of a top-class horse, having played a part in bringing the Stayers’ Hurdle and King George winner Thistlecrack through the ranks.

It is interesting, then, to hear her enthusiasm for The Ballybreen Fox, who will become the young Dorset point-to-point trainer’s first commercial offering at Thursday’s Tattersalls Cheltenham February Sale.

This will be the second time that the Mount Nelson gelding has been through the ring in less than a year, but he arrives as a different proposition to the individual she picked up for £20,000 at the Goffs UK Spring Sale.

The Ballybreen Fox had been quite well-beaten in a couple of starts last March for Cormac Doyle, one of the Wexford brothers who run such a thriving operation from Monbeg Stables. The Monbeg method is generally to get four-year-olds up and running in Irish point-to-points with an eye to selling them on quickly, and Clarke feels that her purchase was simply one who needed a different, longer-term programme.

"We’re quite new to actually buying horses but I had a good look through the catalogue and looked at a lot of the horses there," she recalls.

"He was such a big, weak but very imposing sort of horse, a big chasing sort and the way he moved - he was so light on his feet.

"I was taking a chance and probably paid more than I really wanted to for him but there was just something about him. I quite like those big stamps, something I can work with."

The Ballybreen Fox has shown impressive athleticism for his new connectionsCredit: Nigel Gidney Photography

Clarke, who has an eventing background, and her partner Charlie Marshall, who rides the small string in their races, began with some flat work with the five-year-old, who was produced by Sunnyhill Stud from the family of top hurdler-chaser Sackville.

By New Year’s Day he was ready for a reappearance at Larkhill and a month later absolutely bolted up at his local track of Milborne St Andrew, pulling his rivals apart from the second-last fence.

"We’ve got quite a stiff uphill gallop and he really struggled up there at first," Clarke says. 

"At home we knew we liked what we had, then we schooled him and all of a sudden we really liked what we had; I’ve never known a young horse jump quite that well.

"He was only just beaten in his first run at Larkhill and he probably needed another couple of weeks as he went very green when he hit the front. He’s quite a big boy at home, he knows that he’s good and we needed to run him as he was getting a bit big for his boots. We knew we had something quite smart and after his win at Milborne, that’s not all we've got."

Clarke even asked another experienced trainer to come and have a sit on her horse, just to reassure her that she was not getting ahead of herself. His glowing commendation confirmed that they needed to put the stable star on the market. 

"I’ve sat on some good horses in my time but he’s a very smart horse," she says. "I’d love to keep him, obviously, but in my mind as a point-to-point trainer he’s a Foxhunter horse in the making; the ability he’s got at home is quite impressive. 

"We’re only starting up and we want to try to get into the producing side, the buying and selling, I love producing the young horses and for us, for what we’ve got in the yard, financially he would be the horse to sell.

"I could keep him and he’d really get my name on the map as a point-to-point trainer, but we’ve got to replace and re-buy, and that’s the only reason we’re selling him. Under rules, he’s a very exciting prospect for somebody."

Clarke is based on the family farm between Dorchester and Blandford Forum, where there is an all-weather gallop and schooling facilities for her horses and various services offered for others. She worked for the likes of Mark Gillard, Caroline Keevil and Charlie Mann, and picks out Fiona Shaw as a particular influence.

"She’s a very small trainer who doesn’t have many horses but she does a lot of pre-training," says Clarke. "I worked for her for five seasons and learned how to truly get a horse fit.

"She's the most underrated trainer you’ll ever come across, she taught me so much. You can go up and down the gallop as much as you like but you’ve got to get them strong. I was there over the years we pre-trained Thistlecrack and I used to ride him because he was quite naughty. He was was a very fragile horse and her pre-training was what set him up to keep him strong and to be able to do what he did."

Back at Fishmore Hill Farm, Clarke has been attempting to scale the ladder, buying the likes of Hurricane Fly’s sibling Who’s My Jockey, who remains just as enigmatic as he was when with Philip Hobbs and Richard Hobson but did manage to win in open company last season.

She says: "The last four years we’ve been doing it what I would call properly. We’ve had a lot of seconds, which is very frustrating, but we’ve got what I would call average horses because unfortunately at the moment we’re not on the map enough to be able to buy the slightly better quality, but I think we’re doing very well with what we’ve got."

The most realistic way of making progress is to have an eye on that commercial sector, an activity espoused by the likes of Tom Ellis and Chris Barber. For all that British point-to-pointing faces many of the same troubles as racing under rules in terms of investment and the horse population, a positive aspect has been the success of its graduates in switching codes. According to research by Great British Racing International, which promotes the scene, last season saw a new high of 219 wins and 647 placed efforts across Britain and Ireland.

The likes of Energumene and Ahoy Senor are in the vanguard among those to have started on British courses, but other good winners over fences this season including Does He Know, Third Time Lucki and The Galloping Bear are others to have gone through those ranks.

Clarke would like to think that The Ballybreen Fox could be another of those names, adding: "I think it’s great to see everybody trying to get involved, we need these people coming through so we can keep point-to-pointing going. 

"Especially now, for people bringing young horses through, it gives them a really good stepping stone.

"A reason for selling this horse is just trying to get some money behind us to keep going round. Finding owners is very difficult, I speak to Fran and Charlie Poste a lot and get a lot of advice from them because they’re the kind of people I aspire to be like, but it’s not easy and they’re the first people to say so. But if you keep working hard, then hopefully it’ll pay off."

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