We should embrace the Mares' Hurdle - for now and for the future

The Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle is not a race loved by everyone. It’s criticised for funnelling runners away from the Champion Hurdle – a rumbling that will return should Lossiemouth win on Tuesday – and for being a bad betting race often with a short-priced favourite. Some might take it as an opportunity to plunge into the queues for a Guinness.

Such views are valid but fail to take into account that it has been perhaps the most significant development for the National Hunt breeding and bloodstock market in the last two decades, evidence of which can be seen in runners next week.

Its introduction in 2008 meant that, for the first time, there was a big Cheltenham Festival race in which the only way to win it was to have a mare. So people started to buy them.