The start of grass season in the Northeast marks the beginning of spring for racing fans. The first grass races in the condition book at Laurel Park are scheduled for April 11, and with them will come bigger fields and exciting racing.

Parx Racing has no scheduled turf racing in its first spring book, and Penn National will be off for most of April. Delaware opens May 14.

When looking at an early-season grass race, bettors might see a horse without past performance lines this year and conclude they’ve been out of action for a while. However, with horses based in the Mid-Atlantic, this isn’t always so. Some of them have had prep races at point-to-point meets, and knowing who’s competed in them can help lead you to a score. 

Point-to-point races are a storied tradition in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They take place on weekends throughout the spring, and are called such because they races are generally conducted from one point to another in an open field, rather than over an established, enclosed course. Point-to-point meets generally include Thoroughbred races over flats and jumps, as well as pony races featuring young riders. 

Some Mid-Atlantic trainers, including Keri Brion, Jack Fisher, and Sean McDermott, use point-to-point meets as an opportunity not only for their steeplechase runners, but also to prep their flat horses for pari-mutuel competition.

There are two types of point-to-point meets. A “sanctioned” meet is one where the results are recorded and charted by Equibase, and subsequently appear in past performance lines. The results at “unsanctioned” meets, however, do not. As such, a horse can turn in a big performance at an unsanctioned meet, then run in a race at a Thoroughbred track, and most of the betting public will be none the wiser.

Such was the case in the fourth race at Laurel last April 28, a maiden claiming race at 1 1/8 miles on the grass. According to his past performances, Big Big Star hadn’t raced since January 7, 2022, when he was sixth at Turfway Park. Most bettors would dismiss a horse returning off such a long break.

However, Big Big Star wasn’t really returning from that long of a layoff. Brion ran him in a 1 ½-mile race at the Greenspring Valley Hounds point-to-point meet at Shawan Downs on March 31. He finished fourth, behind, among others, six-time winner Loose Ends, a rival far superior to anyone he’d encounter in that maiden claiming race. With that training race under his belt, Big Big Star was in fine form for his sanctioned season debut. He won by a half-length in gate-to-wire fashion and paid $11.60. 

A few days prior, on April 20, Fisher entered Mission North in a 1 1/16-mile maiden special weight contest at Laurel. He had a gigantic edge over his rivals that was not apparent in the past performances. Not only was he not coming off of a six-month break, he had already won. He captured a 1 ¼-mile race at the Old Dominion Hounds in Virginia on April 6. He couldn’t get settled in that Laurel contest, or in his next start on the Black-Eyed Susan undercard, but put it all together to win impressively at Laurel on June 2 and pay $9.

Another horse who raced at Shawan the same day as Big Big Star was another Brion trainee, Crabs N Beer, who ran second in a different division of the 12-furlong contest. He returned to dead-heat for the win in Maryland-bred allowance April 27 and then finish a very good second – at 14-1 odds – in the Grade 3 Dinner Party on the Preakness undercard.

That’s all well and good, you’re saying. But how can I track this information down so I can incorporate it into my own handicapping?

Even though you can’t see unsanctioned results on Equibase, they’re available on a website called Central Entry Office. You can see results by meet by clicking on the “Meet Info” tab, or by horse by clicking on the “Reports” tab, then “past performance – detailed.” 

The point-to-point season began March 1. Upcoming events include the Piedmont Fox Hounds point to point in Upperville, VA, on March 22; the Greenspring Valley Point-to-Point at Shawan Downs March 30; and Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds Point to Point that same day in Unionville, PA.

A full schedule of point-to-points and other steeplechase events can be found on the Temple Gwathmey website and on the Central Entry Office site. Both sites are worth bookmarking, to keep yourself up-to-date on what’s going on in the point-to-point scene. 

It’ll help give you a leg up on the pari-mutuel competition, most of whom don’t know these races exist, and can lead you towards horses you might not have previously given a second look.