Get Galopin v Bob out of the way and then it's time to scrap the Turners

News this week that Galopin Des Champs was likely to head to the Turners Novices' Chase, setting up a clash with the brilliant Bob Olinger, means this relatively new feature might well be the most eagerly anticipated contest of the Cheltenham Festival this year.

It might therefore seem incongruous to hope that we never have to see the race run again – but, for the sake of the meeting as a whole, that is my fervent wish.

The Turners was introduced in 2011 out of the embers of the Jewson Novices' Handicap Chase, which itself had been run for the first time only in 2005. The novice handicap, which had been open to all novices up to that point, became a 0-140 – and later 0-145 – contest for the lesser horses, while the top-class two-and-a-half-milers were funnelled into the new Grade 2, which was upgraded to Grade 1 status in 2014.