I’M interested to see how new handicap qualifications will affect how leading trainers operate at Cheltenham and there is little doubt that the requirement to have five runs over hurdles to qualify for the open handicaps at the Festival will hamper Willie Mullins, whose novice hurdlers tend to start later than most and are therefore harder to mould to the current requirements.

Mullins has trained eight handicap hurdle winners at the Festival since 2011 who have had fewer than five previous runs. Presumably it’s his ability to produce such horses to plunder lenient marks which has helped prompt this change in the BHA handicapping policy.