'Why not have a separate summer jumps season? It would be a happy medium'

Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer Ben Pauling has suggested separating summer jumping from the core jumps season in order to boost its appeal amid falling field sizes.

More than a third of jumps fixtures between May and August had five runners or fewer, comfortably the highest this century, while an average tally of 6.87 runners per race was the lowest.

Jonjo O'Neill and Britain's champion trainer Paul Nicholls have suggested a complete break, but Pauling believes summer jumping warrants its place in the calendar and could be boosted if marketed differently.