A FEW weeks back in this paper, Gordon Elliott said that he had altered his approach to buying horses, commenting in an interview with Mark Boylan that ‘we’re not trying to buy a boat…you’re getting a really wet month every now and then when those huge horses might thrive, but I think we’ve probably been guilty at times before of buying too big a horse.’

This idea seems prompted by a gradual change in ground conditions for National Hunt racing, as climate change brings about higher temperatures and less rain.