ABOUT 18 months ago, a well-known English trainer suggested that British jumps races ought to be reserved for British horses and while the reaction to that notion was thankfully one of ridicule, there have been attempts made to limit the scale of Irish involvement in racing across the water, and I did wonder what the landscape would look like if the Irish-trained horses were turned away en masse at Liverpool, Fishguard and Stranraer.

It’s tempting to joke that without the Irish runners, the Champion Hurdle would have been won by a 144-rated handicapper, beating one rated 150, but that really did happen, and the proposer of the blanket ban on Irish horses would no doubt have found the victory of Golden Ace one of the highlights of the season. In a way, that’s true, and few would begrudge Jeremy Scott’s mare her unlikely triumph in March.