Don't let Cheltenham fool you - staggering bumper stats suggest worrying trend is only getting worse

With six winners for Willie Mullins as opposed to ten last year, the best Cheltenham Festival for the north of Britain in a decade and lots of smaller Irish yards enjoying success on the biggest stage, it could seem at first glance as though concerns over the concentration of the best jumps horses in the biggest yards have been overblown.

Far from it. Look beneath the surface and in fact this pattern is getting worse and worse, and will be magnified again in the coming years.

This had actually struck me before Cheltenham when noting a pattern in Irish bumper races. Mullins and Gordon Elliott won 38 per cent of bumper races in Ireland from 2018 to 2022 and never more than 44 per cent in a single year, yet this year that figure reads a staggering 74 per cent.