The 30-year pattern that means the Cheltenham Festival is losing its appeal

Recent talk of Willie Mullins having even more winners at the Cheltenham Festival this year than his record-breaking 2022 haul of ten prompted me to dust down some of my old form books.

Thirty years ago, 20 races at the Cheltenham Festival produced 17 different winning trainers. Last year, an expanded 28-race programme produced just 14 different winning trainers, and this year it seems perfectly plausible that half of the races could go to one man alone.

There is understandably much gnashing of teeth at the moment over the growing concentration of power among the big jump racing stables and this narrowing of opportunities at the festival is a long-term pattern that really does reflect the scale of the problem.