Bryony Frost shouldn't be forgotten when asking why so few professional female riders were in action at Cheltenham Festival

It’s reflection time when it comes to the Cheltenham Festival. 

Concerns about the cost, competitiveness and experience at jump racing’s biggest meeting remain, but this year’s event seemed to recapture some of the spark that was missing. 

However, the week also brought up a talking point which deserves to be garnering plenty of airtime and that’s the absence of professional female riders at the meeting. 

It was excellent to see Rachael Blackmore doing what she does best on Thursday but, as my colleague Lee Mottershead pointed out, she was just one of two professional female riders in action at the festival. The other was Isabel Williams, who had one ride for her father Evan. 

It was said on ITV Racing that Cheltenham is a different place when Blackmore rides a winner, but it has only been six years since Bryony Frost and Frodon battled their way up the hill in the Ryanair Chase and it was magic and mayhem rolled into one then too. 

Blackmore, who won the Albert Bartlett the following day aboard Minella Indo, may still be riding high during racing's best week, but it is a shame just how quickly Frost appears to have been forgotten. 

This is her first season since making the transition to riding full-time in France and the fact she had just two rides at Compiegne during a meeting she once made her own is desperately sad.  

Frost’s sympathetic style in the saddle and ability to connect with the public through her unashamedly emotional post-race interviews made her a wonderful tonic to racing, which still suffers from being seen as an old boys’ club.

It is difficult to remember as much goodwill being directed towards any rider as when she was in action, a point which was emphasised when she returned to these shores to partner her father’s Asian Spice at Exeter in November.

Bryony Frost and Asian Spice return to the winner's enclosure at Exeter in NovemberCredit: Edward Whitaker

That makes it all the more disappointing that she was unable to gain sufficient support to stay in this country. Has enough really been done to try and get her back? Or is racing's culture more poisonous than we're led to believe? Because you cannot convince me she would not be riding alongside Blackmore last week if given the chance. 

That jockey produced a masterful ride aboard Bob Olinger to clinch the Stayers’ Hurdle and complete a scoop of the sport's biggest races, after which she admitted she did not know why more young women weren't making the transition to become fully fledged riders after leaving the racing schools. 

She outlined her hopes for a busier female weighing room and suggested the knock-on impact of her success may take longer than anticipated to translate.

“We've shown that if you want to do it, the opportunities are there,” she said. “I don't think it's a case of females thinking there's a barrier there. I think that day has gone."

Have all the barriers really been lifted? While Blackmore and other women have proved it is possible to breakthrough into the big league, the fact Frost’s career nosedived when she spoke out about bullying is surely no coincidence.

It is also surely relevant that just last month the Professional Jockeys' Association said delays to the modernisation of British weighing rooms were "prolonging the ongoing discrimination" faced by its female members.

Decorated amateur rider Gina Andrews, also a festival winner, also highlighted the lack of support for female jockeys turning professional in an interview with the Racing Post in January.

Racing has made significant strides for women in recent years, but let's not kid ourselves it cannot do much more. It's a travesty Frost is no longer around and the sport cannot afford for others to fall by the wayside. 

Mares’ races must be moved

If last week taught us anything, it is that mares' races simply do not belong at the Cheltenham Festival. 

There was more than the suggestion of irony that Lossiemouth cantered home in the Mares’ Hurdle when the horse she would have surely beaten landed the Champion instead. 

Then came the damp squib of Friday’s card and Dinoblue coming home in one of the poorest spectacles of the week in the Mares’ Chase. 

The Mares' Chase was a disappointing spectacle at last week's Cheltenham FestivalCredit: Patrick McCann

I take the point that these races are important to the development of the breed, but they don’t need to be run at the festival and rob our elite races of much-needed depth.

The changes made by the programme by the Jockey Club this year all seem to have been a resounding success. It is clear this is what they must do next.

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