THIS afternoon’s Close Brothers Handicap Chase at Kempton has had almost as many different names in the last decade as there have been years in the last decade. The changes have been fairly subtle on occasion, like from the Racing Post Chase to the Racing Plus Chase, and from the Betbright Chase to the Betdaq Chase to the Betway Chase, via the 888Sport Chase. Now it’s the Close Brothers Chase, which it can be, now that the Close Brothers (Novices’ Handicap) Chase at the Cheltenham Festival is no more.

You have to be grateful to sponsors at all levels, especially these days, and Close Brothers also stepped in to sponsor the Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival last year for the first time. But it just shows you the difficulty in having the sponsor’s name as the race name. Sponsorships just don’t last as long these days as the Hennessy and the Whitbread sponsorships did.