Trust remains in short supply between jockeys and officials after Grand National start once again miscues

For much of the three days of the Grand National meeting there was little to suggest the starting woes of Cheltenham were in danger of returning.

Some of that might have been down to the way the starting areas are laid out on the Mildmay course at Aintree, compared to some of the bending run-ups at Prestbury Park, while smaller fields in several of the Grade 1s also put less pressure on riders to find daylight as they approached the starter.

But when it came to the start of Friday’s Topham Chase – a dress rehearsal for the National, albeit from a different point of departure – the instruction to walk forward and then pause produced clear winners and losers.