WITH just three further weekends of race action remaining in the current season, it is an extremely welcome development to see that the year-on-year decline in hunter certificate numbers which existed over the past four seasons, could be set to come to an end, with this year’s numbers almost matching those from 12 months ago.

When taken alongside the National Hunt foal crop figures which point to an increased number of horses for the years to come, this has to be taken as a real positive for the sport.