Drastic action is needed to improve field sizes at the top level - so could scrapping entry fees be the answer?

Premier racing is a noble concept and one I really hope works out for the good of the sport – but there’s one aspect of our top races that must be making it a hard sell at the moment.

Last Saturday, for the second week running, British racegoers were presented with a single-figure field for what was supposedly one of the top jump races of the season. The Grade 1 Scilly Isles attracted just five runners, following on from five in the rearranged Clarence House Chase seven days previously (albeit an improvement on the measly three or four that had been set to line up at Ascot prior to that meeting’s abandonment).

Furthermore, it’s a situation likely to crop up at times during the Flat season, when Premier racing will supposedly come into its own. Last year, for example, saw fields of five for the Coronation Cup, four for the Eclipse (which has had just 14 runners for the last three editions combined), five for the Sussex Stakes and four for the Juddmonte International.