British point-to-pointing’s 52nd annual Awards Dinner – sponsored by Tattersalls Cheltenham & Ascot Sales – will celebrate two record-smashers when it takes place at Cheltenham racecourse tomorrow evening.
Warwickshire-based Gina Andrews (pictured below) will step up to receive the Skinner's women's championship which she won easily with a score of 58 during the 2018/19 season. That tally was far ahead of the previous women's record of 40 which had been set by Polly Curling in 1995. Andrews has been British champion six times.
Gina Andrews
Fuller's Brewery men's champion Will Biddick (pictured below), who collects the title for a seventh time, also set a new mark during the season when racing past Richard Burton's British record score of 414 victories. With 43 winners, Cornishman Biddick took the mark to a new high of 431 – he also won Punchestown's Champion Hunters' Chase on Caid Du Berlais, who is trained by Rose Loxton. The Point-to-Point Racing Company's leading hunter chase trainer award goes to Loxton, while David Maxwell will receive the same sponsor's trophy for riding the most hunter chase winners.
Will Biddick
Bridgend's Jack Tudor (pictured first below), now one of Jump racing's most promising conditional jockeys, and North Yorkshire's Jess Bedi (pictured second below) collect Fuller's novices' awards, while Newbury's Tim Underwood and Warwickshire's Tom Ellis collect the Foran Equine trainers' championships. Underwood, who takes the title for yards with seven or fewer horses, also collects Tattersalls' leading owner award.
Jack Tudor
Jess Bedi
Simon Waugh will receive the Connolly's Red Mills leading horse title – his Winged Crusader (pictured main photo above), trained in Northumberland by his daughter Amie, won eight races last season – while John and Sonia Gardener travel from Devon following the victory of their Cloudy Music in The Jockey Club-sponsored maiden mares' series.
Leading point-to-point rider Claire Hardwick will join journalist Carl Evans in hosting the occasion, which will open with a launch of the sport's national sponsorships from The Jockey Club, Retraining of Racehorses, The Oriental Club, Tattersalls Cheltenham, Goffs UK and Skinner's Pet Foods.