Garthorpe Racecourse (Leics)

Typically sold as a ‘great day out for the family’, Point to Points are built around keeping hunts in the public eye. According to the British Horseracing Society, Point-to-Point Steeple Chases are for horses owned and ridden by members of an affiliated Hunt. A fixture can either be arranged by a Hunt or group of Hunts. As Garthorpe handily explains on its website, “The racecourse is managed by The Melton Hunt Club on behalf of landowner Buckminster Estates [see below]…There are currently five race-days each year. The three hunts whose countries abut in Melton — the Belvoir, Cottesmore and Quorn — are each invited to organise one race-day. An adjacent hunt, currently the Meynell and South Staffordshire, is also invited to do so. The MHC itself also organises its own race-day.” Yet another racecourse that appears to exist simply to promote hunts, then. Buckminster Estate is a popular wedding venue and “owns most of the land around Sewstern, Gunby and Wymondham (Leicestershire) which is all land used by the notoriously violent Cottesmore Hunt as regularly noted by (amongst others) Locals against the Cottesmore Hunt and Northants Hunt Sabs.”