Champion Chase and Ryanair bounce back from historic low number of entries - but Gold Cup goes in the other direction

This time last year the headlines were dominated by record low entries in all three championship races over fences, and so the first thing to note is that both the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Ryanair Chase have staged small recoveries.

The Champion Chase has rallied from an appalling low of 14 entries to 19, while the Ryanair has ticked up from 27 to 32, rises of 35 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.

But on the other side of the balance sheet, the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup dropped again from 27 entries in 2023 to just 20, less than half of the initial number revealed as recently as 2021.