This isn't about Britain v Ireland - it's about fairness, giving chances to more people and protecting racing's future

It was obvious there was going to be some pushback in response to the BHA's idea of limiting trainers to four runners in major handicaps. I did not anticipate that it would immediately descend into Britain versus Ireland, which was probably naive of me.

The subsequent discussion reminded me of the decades-long arguments over proportional representation. When your party's stuck on 30 per cent of the vote with no power and little prospect of any, the case for PR in elections is obvious. Then you creep up to 42 per cent, gain all of the power for the next five years and suddenly the idea has lost its appeal.

That thought was prompted by Gigginstown's Eddie O'Leary, who pointed out that no such intervention was deemed necessary back in the days when Martin Pipe was having loads of handicap runners. Gordon Elliott continued the theme by saying: "Twenty years ago, all the good horses were in England and the chances are it will go full circle in ten years."