David Dunsdon is point-to point champion after racing was officially abandoned for this year at a Jockey Club meeting last Monday.

The 18-year-old jockey to his cousin Nick Gifford at Findon had ridden six winners by the time racing finished at the end of February.

The season had run barely one month but it is clear the stringent precautions against the raging foot-and-mouth disease could not be put in place on courses situated mainly on farmland.

It leaves David a reluctant champion.

"I would far rather have gone through the season and taken my chance, I don't really feel like a champion," said David at snowbound Fontwell on Tuesday, where he rode Glitter Isle for Nick's father Josh.

"Now we will have to concentrate on the hunter chases at regular meetings, although most of the horses would have been running in hunter chases anyway."

David drives from his home at Ewhurst to Findon on average five mornings a week. He rides out for Nick and Josh as well as for other trainers on the remaining mornings.

Two of his winners were for Nick, two more for Christine Elliot near Godalming and two for other trainers. David has been riding as long as he can remember and for a long time now his ambition has been to be a jockey.

He said: "I did the usual Pony Club scene, hunting and so on and had quite a good time showjumping, which John Francome did before he became a jockey.

"For the time being I shall remain an amateur and I would need to be confident of riding 50 or 60 winners a season before I would take a professional licence, and anyway I won't do that until I'm 21."

lBEN Hitchcott, leading the amateur riders' table with 19 winners, has made up his mind to turn professional for the start of the next jumps season in May.

Hitchcott, based with Gardie Grissell at Brightling Park, had hesitated because Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum hoped he would repeat last year's championship winning Arabian racing season which is confined to amateurs.

He said: "I have been there, done that and it is time to move on.

"I will hope to capitalise on my good run over jumps this season. I won't even be taking a holiday because we have all had too much time off through all the aban-donments already."