ONE of the reasons I love National Hunt racing is seeing horses develop from four-year-old novices to eight or nine-year-old champions to, if they’re lucky, much loved 12-year-old veterans.

I never really thought about what the horses were doing before they made their racecourse debut. I always liked looking at the racecard to see a horse’s sire and dam, but I didn’t have any real idea about the huge part of the horse racing industry that happens before a horse even sees a racecourse.