I can imagine that the change was instituted because last year at the meeting, with only nine jump races last year, there was an incident at the last fence, either falling or at least the horse lost the rider, in FIVE of the nine races, or over half. By comparison, there was only one fall at ALL the other fences combined. So yes it changes the way the race is run, and perhaps those numbers are an anomaly, but in this case you can make a strong argument for erring on the side of caution here.
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