What can we learn from the days since a horse last ran?

Trip, track and ground are considered by many as the fundamentals of form study, but it doesn’t matter whether a horse has all those in their favour if they aren’t right on raceday.

Training horses to peak for one or two races a year seems to be the approach the best operators take over jumps nowadays and that is a major way in which the jumps game differs from the Flat, where runners are usually kept on the go for longer and take in multiple targets.

It has made me realise that I need to approach betting on the jumps differently to the Flat and that is particularly true when it comes to the big races of the season. Forget recent form and trip, track and ground, all that matters is whether a horse has been trained to peak for the race.