THE recently announced HRI plan to address some of the issues in Irish jumps racing by excluding the top four trainers (those who had over 50 winners in the two previous seasons) from having entries in 60 nominated races in 2025, continued to create a lot of comment this week with reports that the “big four” were fighting against the plan.

“60 races designed by the HRI Programmes Committee to give trainers the confidence to attract new owners into their yards with the knowledge that there is a programme of races there to support them” was the comment from the governing body.