ONE of the worrying statistics in the IHRB integrity figures published last week was the decrease of 16.5% in the number of National Hunt trainers’ licences issued in 2019, a total of 81.

The figure for licences issued in 2014 was 122 so the decline in four years is even more substantial.

With racing suspended for at least another month, it will be a very worrying time for many of their number. We are entering what would have been the summer jumps season, when many trainers are looking for a share of prize money.

Smaller owners and syndicate-owned horses are a regular feature of winners’ enclosures over the summer jumps meetings and the fewer opportunities for them to get a winning return for keeping a horse in training will surely hit more as bigger yards may take up more of the summer, and in a reduced flat programme.

Australian Army!

SKY Sports Racing this week sent us looking for racing’s gallant losers. Horses like Excelebration, unlucky to be born in the same time as Frankel, also came into this discussion. Another was Fame And Glory who - but for Sea The Stars - would have been a dual Derby and Irish Champion Stakes winner and likely sent to stud more quickly.

Another ‘what might have been’ was unearthed as the absence of racing brought a more in-depth scrutiny of international results last weekend.

Harzand won the 2016 Derby but what horse started favourite for the race? A choicely-bred son of Galileo and the Irish Oaks and Epsom second Moonstone. But alas not for him a life at stud, that length and a half defeat was his pinnacle.

For in the last race in Caulfield on Saturday, back in 11th place of the 14 runners in a 10-furlong handicap, at 100/1, was the gelded son of Galileo. US Army Ranger is still out there galloping on the far side of the world!