Lack of progress on field sizes has me worried for my treasured jumps season

Any day now, the shops will rediscover their Christmas cassettes and we'll have Andy Williams telling us it's the most wonderful time of the year. On Persian War day, I feel it to be true, with six and a bit months of quality jumps action stretching away in front of us.

It would not be strictly accurate to claim that my Chepstow-related pleasure was always unalloyed. Once you've been around the circuit for a few years, any committed fan of the 'winter game' knows the major downside to mid-autumn, which has to do with long-term injuries.

Big-name horses are stepped up a gear in their work and it suddenly transpires that all is not quite well. Perhaps there's a tear in a tendon (I do apologise, jumps trainers, for using such stressful language). At any rate, there's always a horse or two who we were all looking forward to seeing, who gets ruled out for the season.