Key stats and figures behind the first three months of the year in Britain

Alan King recently said he had saddled in the region of 160 fewer runners over jumps this season due to the soggy start to the year and statistics from the first quarter of 2018, compiled by the Racing Post, paint a similar picture.

Of 161 jumps meetings staged between January 1 and March 31, no fewer than 59 were staged on heavy ground, an increase of 21 from the same period last year. That is the most heavy-ground fixtures in the first quarter of the year since 2014, with heavy featuring in the going description on all four days of last month’s Cheltenham Festival.

The wet weather also reduced the fixture list due to abandonments, with 161 jumps fixtures in the first quarter of 2018, down from 182 in the corresponding period last year.