Diamond found in the Leopardstown mud

RACING/Leopardstown Sunday: Against the odds, Leopardstown managed to race yesterday and the 14 to 1 outsider Coq Hardi Diamond caught the mood to splash his way to Paddy Power Chase glory.

Claiming jockey Gary Hutchinson had previously just 32 winners but he picked up the spare ride from Paul Carberry and swooped to land the biggest prize of his career.

"He jumped unbelievably - except for the last. I just stuck with him," grinned the 22-year-old Hutchinson.

For a split second, that last fence mistake looked like agonisingly depriving the Noel Meade-trained horse from going one better than his second in the €170,000 race two years ago.

However, Hutchinson did stick and Coq Hardi Diamond kept going to win by seven lengths from the 25 to 1 shot Satcoslam and the 14 to 1 Clonmel's Minella in third.

It would have been very hard luck had that mistake cost the winner who managed to handle conditions - as extreme as most in the 14,326-strong crowd could remember at any race track.

The course passed a 7.00 a.m. inspection following 13mms of overnight rain. The problem was that close on 10mms more fell before racing began and there were some anxious examinations of the ground all through the morning.

The conditions were bad enough for two fences to be removed and one contest, the future champions novice hurdle, disintegrated into a two-horse race.

"It was a very close call," acknowledged the clerk of the course, Joe Collins.

"At 7.00 the Met office said it would stop raining but we must have got about 10mms more. It was close and in hindsight one wouldn't want to be racing on that every day," he added.

Racing began at midday and the runners in the Evening Herald December Festival Hurdle kicked up enough water and muck to indicate that conditions would be testing in the extreme.

Much of the interest in that race was lost, however, when Like-A-Butterfly was declared a non-runner after scoping badly in the morning. She was withdrawn along with the rest of the Christy Roche-trained runners.

"Like-A-Butterfly scoped wrong and it appears there is a virus in the yard," Roche said.

By the time of the big race conditions resembled something like the Ypres Salient and three miles in very heavy ground proved too much for many.

Just nine finished and Kirmar, who had made much of the running, refused at the very last fence when beaten.

Finians Ivy started the 11 to 2 favourite but was never in contention and he was pulled up before the last fence. The second favourite Precious Music fell at the fifth, a fall that resulted in jockey Barry Geraghty being stood down with concussion, and last year's winner I Can Imagine did best of the fancied runners in seventh.

The conditions didn't stop Moscow Flyer retaining his position at the top of the Queen Mother Champion Chase with a win as smooth as could be expected in the Dial-A-Bet Chase.

"I'm so relieved. People were asking would we run or not but we decided to go for it and the first decision is usually best," said trainer Jessica Harrington.