There was as much turf racing in Manhattan last week as there was in Ireland, sofrom a racing point of view, it made as much sense to be there as to be here, kids and all, just to see what all the hullabaloo was about, if the Empire State Building really was bigger than Liberty Hall, and here’s the thing – it is. (More expensive to get in as well, but whatya gonna do?).

The trip was planned. It did help that part of the extended family live in New York, and that rent payable amounted to six loaves of Brennan’s bread, 480 Barry’s tea bags and a ticket to a Knicks game, but even so, it wasn’t as if we all woke up on Monday morning and said, look, yesterday’s Sussex National at Plumpton will probably be the last steeplechase run until the Normans Grove Chase at Fairyhouse, let’s head to New York tomorrow, let’s see how much flights are with 24 hours’ notice and how much discount you get for the small ones, under six but over the all-important age of two (when they start to cost you). And don’t think that you will get away with saying they are under two if they are two years and two weeks on the day that you fly. You may get out ofDublin, but you will almost certainly incur the wrath of the mean lady on the check-in desk on the way home. Honestly.

Prospects for racing all week made for grim reading. Abandoned, frozen, unraceable, there was even a motion to change all-weather racing to almost all-weather racing, or all-weather racing as long as the ambulance starts.

We learned from home that the country was bored. It wasn’t enough that we were deep in recession and that the heating bill was higher than the credit card bill for the first time since January 2005, but bored and broke is a poor combination. No racing, no football, no golf courses open, not even a rugby match to go to. Once you got home from mass at eleven o’clock on Sunday, there was nothing to do until the FA Cup Third Round got under way on Saturday. Even Wednesday night’s whist drive was cancelled because the bus wouldn’t run.

On the up-side, the break has provided ample time for reviewing recent races in minute detail. Wasn’t Lochan Lacha running a massive race in the Paddy PowerChase at Leopardstown over Christmas when he came down at the second last?There was a lot going on in the race, it was sometimes difficult to follow horses, given their number and the different camera angles, and I was reviewing it really to watch Glenquest again and to see if Siegemaster was unlucky. However,I hadn’t fully appreciated how well Lochan Lacha had travelled through the race and how well he was still going when his challenge was ended.

He was upsides ultimate runner-up Siegemaster at the point of his departure, he and the winner Oscar Time were the only horses still on the bridle, and we know that Tony Martin’s horse finds lots for pressure, as he proved when he won that handicap hurdle at Fairyhouse in early December under a whipless Ruby Walsh. The handicapper obviously couldn’t raise him from his mark of 122 for this performance but it is probable that he would have finished second and he may have given Oscar Time a race. Siegemaster has gone up 6lb and Oscar Time has gone up 14lb, so Lochan Lacha is probably really well handicapped now on a mark of 122. He will be interesting whenever he shows up next in a staying handicap chase, which could be in the Thyestes Chase atGowran Park on Thursday.

Also of interest now is Reblis, who ran a massive race to finish second to Doctor Pat in a novices’ handicap chase at Newbury on 29th December. Gary Moore’s horse, still officially a four-year-old at the time, travelled and jumped really well in the early stages, just behind the front rank. He took it up between the last two, ears pricked but, while a mistake at the last didn’t help, he just had no answer to Doctor Pat’s finishing surge. Time may prove that there was no disgrace in going down by a length to Doctor Pat and the pair of thempulled clear of the third-placed Khachaturian.

An 8lb hike is not overly penal, given that Reblis raced from 3lb out of the handicap, and that it brings him up to a mark of just 115, which is actually 1lb lower than his highest rating over hurdles. Given his progressive profile – he has now run just twice over fences – it almost certainly under-estimates his ability. He is in a three-mile novices’ handicap chase at Kempton tomorrow – first turf racing in two weeks, whiteout over – and he will be of interest in that as long asthe ground is genuinely soft and they don’t put him in too short.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Betting, Horse Racing, Irish Racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.