Newspaper reports tucked away below the fish and chip prices reveal that when horse riders are looking for a good show-jumping mount, they check the amount by which a horse can tuck-up the front legs.

"Just like some people can do the splits and others can't, so some horses are very flexible and can bring their back legs up much higher than others.

"Conversely, the front leg was not thought to be genetically linked and is very trainable. This means most horses can be trained to develop a good 'forelimb tuck'. What this research has shown is that the trainer is as important as the horse," she said.

The horses used in the study, which was presented at the Sixth International Conference on Equine Locomotion in Cabourg, were all aged between three and five years old and had sold for between 5,000 euro (£3,969) and 60,000 euro (£47,633)"

Research? That means they spent good money and time checking something. Am I the only one to remember when a famous trainer and rider was castigated for training his mounts by getting them to jump a bar to which hedgehog skins had been nailed?

Don't know much about training horses but what I know about training dogs is that it is really very simple if one reinforces natural actions and instincts.