Power is in the wrong hands - as Cheltenham's five-day debate highlighted

Credit where credit is due to the Jockey Club for carrying out a thorough consultation process and, crucially, listening to the feedback when deciding to keep the Cheltenham Festival to four days rather than extend it to five.

However, the fact the final decision on the future of jump racing's biggest fixture was solely in the hands of a commercial racecourse group only underlines the predicament British racing finds itself in and highlights why even a new governance structure is not necessarily going to be enough to allow the meaningful changes the fixture list is crying out for to be implemented in 2024.

The Jockey Club has a mantra to "act for the long-term good of British racing". Nevertheless, it is also a commercial organisation and the pros a fifth day would bring to the wider group were obvious. However, it was the collective cons for racing which ultimately kiboshed the idea, so surely the final call should have been the wider sport's to make.