YOU can see the appeal of veterans’ chases. One of the attractions of National Hunt racing is that we grow to recognise the competitors, they return to competition, perennials all, so that we become familiar with their characteristics, we get to know them as friends.

So when the youngest horse in a race is 10 years old, you can be sure that most racing followers know most of the horses very well.

After the final of the veterans’ chase series was run at Sandown on Saturday – won by the evergreen Buywise, an adjective that could have been ascribed to just about any one of the 14 competitors regardless of who won it – there was a suggestion that there should be a veterans’ chase added to the Cheltenham Festival roster.

You can see the argument for. (See above re old friends, familiar faces.) And the argument that the Cheltenham Festival is about the best of the best – and that the veterans are not – does not stand up because, if it did, you wouldn’t have 0-140 handicaps at Cheltenham.

But if you had a veterans’ chase at the Cheltenham Festival, you would detract from the other races, mainly the Ultima Handicap Chase, the Kim Muir, the Cross-Country chase and the Brown Advisory Handicap Chase. And which race would it replace?

Also, if the final was run at the Cheltenham Festival instead of at Sandown last Saturday, there would not be the time nor the airspace to afford the winner the accolades and the attention that he or she is due.