JAGGED Edge was an unusual winner of the Irish Cambridgeshire last Sunday, not because of a 22/1 SP as much as his age, three-year-olds becoming an endangered species in the traditional premier handicaps around a mile, which is a contributing factor to these races being in decline.

As I see it, there are six such races in the calendar: the Lincoln, the mile premier handicaps at the Curragh over Guineas and Derby weekend, the Nasrullah, the Galway Mile and the Cambridgeshire, with three-year-olds allowed to run in all but the Lincoln.

There are other premier handicaps around a mile, but all have either age or sex restrictions attached or are relatively new races whereas the six contests above have been around a long time.

To the right is a table of those six traditional races with their field size and number of three-year-old runners in 2025 compared with the 10-year average for the same, with minor adjustments to the data for some of the races not being run in the Covid year.

Looking at the early season races, one might think there is nothing to see here.

The Lincoln drew 27 runners when the previous 10-year average is 21.5, though that figure is depressed by the race being run at Naas between 2017 and 2019 when the safety limit was 20.

However, there has been a sharp drop in field sizes with the last two of these races. The Galway Mile had just 14 runners when it had been a full field of 18 in eight of the last nine seasons, the exception drawing 17 runners.

The Cambridgeshire had just 15 runners last Sunday despite never having dipped below 20 runners at any point in in the previous 10 years.

Dips like this can be caused by the vagaries of racing: horses get injured or have other options, the ground turns against them and so on but there has been a downward pattern in total runners in these six traditional races over last five years, going from 115 in 2021 to 129 to 119 to 104 and just 98 this year.

The headline reason for this is the lack of three-year-old runners, particularly this year.

Just three three-year-olds have run in these races in 2025, and two of them were the same horse, Mississippi River appearing in both the Nasrullah and the Galway Mile.

Jagged Edge was the sole three-year-old runner in the Cambridgeshire this year whereas in the five previous years the numbers had been four, six, four, two and two.

Between 2015 and 2019, the average number of three-year-old runners in these races between was 9.8 and, leaving out the Covid year, 2021 was excellent with 19 three-year-old runners.

Since then the number has dwindled to nine, seven, six and three this season.

Where are they?

The obvious conclusion is that the three-year-olds simply are not there to run, many of them likely to have moved abroad to race earlier in the season.

The type of horse that has the rating to qualify for a premier handicap is just the profile that suits buyers in Hong Kong and the Middle East.

Their absence certainly detracts from the quality of these races. I enjoy betting in races like this, with mixed results in truth, but the three-year-olds add intrigue and freshness to these race as punters look to work out where their form fits in and are especially needed in the second half of the season.

In their absence, we are left with the same stale form lines from race to race, and this impacts not only this season’s premier handicaps but also those in the succeeding years. If the three-year-olds aren’t there to run this year, then the four-year-olds won’t be around next year either, creating a vicious circle.

Another impact of smaller fields in these traditional races is that they change their pace profile.

Not every big field has a strong pace and not every small field goes slow but in the main, more runners create more pace and a truer-run race.

Last Saturday the first three home were all towards the front early and the combination of that and their racing against the far rail meant that nothing that was held up had any chance in the race. Ideally, this is not the sort of spectacle we want.

THE ITM barrier trials due for Dundalk in July may have been cancelled due to insufficient entries, but the group of eight run at Leopardstown last Wednesday seemed notably competitive. Many top yards were attracted by the draw of practice at a premier track ahead of the autumn and fields in the mid-teens were the biggest yet in these trials.

The usual caveats about fitness and weights aside, there were things to learn from the trials. Throughout the day, horses on the front end dominated, most of the trials run at a steady pace and Leopardstown generally favouring forward-going types this season.

Many of the winners seemed clued-up, sharp types, some of whom could be sold to run soon.

Both the Diego Dias winners, Noelan Star and Kenough, were due to be sold at a Tattersalls pop-up online sale last week.

One trial not dominated from the front was batch six, the first Inbox, the third Noble Honour and the fourth Astronomically all coming from behind and worth marking up. Inbox travelled well on the outer and came there going strongly a furlong out, only needing to be pushed out to win while Noble Honour came from a long way back and was quite green.

The most impressive winner of the day was Braemar Point in the final trial, the only one for older horses. The Earthlight gelding, trained by John Feane, came wide in the straight and streaked clear and this was by far the fastest time of the six trials over seven furlongs.

Henry de Bromhead has had success with barrier trial runners in the past and many of his Leopardstown runners were there for education, ridden out the back to come home well. Peachy Canyon in batch four made up good ground late without being knocked about while Retro Gal was similar in batch seven.

Joseph O’Brien seemed of a similar mind to de Bromhead and, of his runners, Queen Of Katwe (batch one) and Zermatt Star (batch five) took the eye with decent finishing efforts.

There were six runners on the day for Jessica Harrington. The aforementioned Noble Honour went well as did Now Maybe in batch seven. That batch produced the slowest time of the seven-furlong trials and Now Maybe pulled clear with another rival, doing well to come from off a slow pace albeit hard ridden to do so.

Two final eye-catchers stand out. Chapelhillhart (Michael O’Callaghan) was fifth in batch one but shaped a fair bit better than that. She raced in the rear of mid-division and travelled strongly only to be caught behind a wall of horses in the straight. When finally getting room, she picked her way through easily and looked to have more to give under a kind ride.

Sazerac Dance (Paul Nolan) was near last turning in during batch two but made up a lot of ground to finish fourth in another trial where the pace held up.