'What can you do?' - Gary Moore has his say on small field sizes this season

Gary Moore insists the issue of dismal field sizes in Britain this season has been overcomplicated, with several reasons to blame for the worrying decline.

The theme of disappointing turnouts that has plagued the campaign continues on Saturday, with just 48 runners declared for Haydock's card despite £295,000 being offered in prize-money across the seven races, and the trainer believes the volume of racing has played a crucial part in having regular small fields.

Speaking on the Racing Post's What A Shout weekend preview show on Friday, Moore said: "If horses aren't healthy, and the ground is not suiting some, what can you do?

"We've had a lot of racing from the start of the season – we've barely missed a day. We normally do miss a few meetings here and there because of the weather, but I don't think any meeting has been called off with frost this year."

Storm Eunice caused chaos across the country on Friday and Moore made sure to keep all his horses and staff safe, adding: "We started an hour earlier this morning, got all the horses out and everything had finished exercising by 10am."

Despite there being more than two months left of the jumps season, Moore has already smashed past his best tally of 63 he posted in 2005-06, sitting on 66 prior to the weekend.

"Better class of horses, healthy horses, and I've got a very good team behind me," said Moore, commenting on the secret of this season's success.

'That's the true Goshen'

Goshen made a triumphant return to his best form at Sandown this month, winning the Contenders Hurdle by 15 lengths, and he is now set for a clash with one of last season's leading juveniles in the Kingwell Hurdle (3.20) in the David Pipe-trained Adagio.

Although acknowledging that Pipe's young pretender was well fancied, Moore is relishing the chance to see him run again.

"That's the true Goshen [at Sandown last time], when he goes right-handed on soft ground he's a hard horse to beat. It's just a shame that the Champion Hurdle isn't run at Sandown to be honest, I think he'd have a serious chance," said Moore.

A Flat campaign could also be on the cards for Goshen due to a lack of opportunities to go right-handed beyond Saturday, and Royal Ascot would be the dream destination.

"He's not getting any younger now and it would definitely be in the back of my mind that we'd have a go at that," added Moore.

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