The rule change that would have ruled out a Cheltenham Festival winner last year

Here's a little trivia question: which winner at last year's Cheltenham Festival would have been ineligible had this year's rules been in place?

Before you go delving into the form book, the answer is State Man. In fact, there have been three other Cheltenham Festival winners over hurdles in the past ten years who would not be allowed to run this time around.

State Man, along with fellow County Hurdle winner Saint Roi and Martin Pipe victor Killultagh Vic, would all fail to qualify as they had raced just three times over hurdles. This season, novice hurdlers need to have run four times to get in the better handicaps, which applies to all those at the festival apart from the Boodles.