Clearing the backlog has begun - but there is still a long way to go

It is fair to say that the ecosystem of the National Hunt horse has been thrown completely out of sync in 2021.

With so many factors at play, the consequences, which themselves are not easy to forecast in the continually evolving situation in which we find ourselves, look almost certain to reverberate through point-to-pointing and beyond.

Since the Dromahane fixture on December 20, which at the time nobody knew would be the last traditional pointing meeting for more than four months, many significant developments have entered the wider equation.