Dry January and the spirit of Mr Frisk: reschedule the Veterans' Chase by all means, but it should never be festival fare

This time last year there was a fair bit of mud flying over the decision not to reschedule the valuable Fleur De Lys Chase lost from Lingfield’s abandoned Winter Million fixture.

In this space I argued that, however unfortunate the January frost proved for the Lingfield team, the fact the race was not part of the jumps Pattern was reason enough not to try to shoehorn it in elsewhere. 

Now we have similar discussions surrounding the £100,000 Veterans’ Chase Series Final lost at soggy Sandown, I find myself on the opposite side of the argument, though I hope I’m being consistent.