Notre Pere in with more than a prayer

RACING:THE REMARKABLE thaw which has Leopardstown tantalisingly on the verge of racing has also presented the track authorities with a waterlogging problem which requires a 7.30am inspection today.

Just 48 hours after a foot of snow lay on the Foxrock course on Christmas Day, officials turned up yesterday morning to find almost all that snow had gone.

However, the impact of such a wholesale melt is putting even Leopardstown’s famously effective drainage system under pressure and parts of the course were waterlogged yesterday.

“We’re hopeful we will be able to go ahead and certainly, considering where we were on Christmas Day, it is hard to believe where we are now,” manager Tom Burke said.

“Most of the track is in remarkable condition in the circumstances. But any drainage system will be under pressure with all this water and we are in unknown territory about it all getting away in time.

“Another complicating factor is that we could get up to half an inch of rain overnight. That is due to be gone by 6am, though, so we are still hopeful,” he added.

But that optimism about Ireland’s 2010 Christmas programme finally getting under way wasn’t shared by Britain’s champion trainer, Paul Nicholls, as he declined to travel the defending champion What A Friend for today’s €150,000 feature, the Lexus Chase.

The Alex Ferguson-owned horse’s defection means last year’s runner-up, Money Trix, and the 2007 winner, The Listener, are the cross-sea challengers against a home team of 11 headed by Willie Mullins’s trio of Cooldine, J’y Vole and Kempes.

All three are proven Grade One performers and all three ran at the recent Fairyhouse winter festival, where J’y Vole did best of all when chasing home Tranquil Sea in the John Durkan Memorial.

However, neither she nor Kempes is guaranteed to relish going three miles in ultra-testing conditions, while the Hennessy hero Joncol has to bounce back from a lack-lustre start to his campaign in the Fortria.

In a hugely-competitive race, the accent being on stamina could see Notre Pere make a spectacular return to the big-time.

Jim Dreaper’s dour stayer won the 2008 Welsh National and the 2009 Gold Cup at Punchestown in a campaign that hinted at great things for last season. Those hopes didn’t come to fruition and Notre Pere has dropped 18lb in the ratings from his career high of 167.

There has been encouragement in both starts so far this term, however. A second to Glencove Marina at Thurles was followed by a fine Becher Chase effort over the big fences at Aintree that saw his chance disappear with some bad luck at Bechers Brook.

In these conditions, when nothing is going to happen quickly, and plenty of unsure stayers will be folding a fair way from home, Notre Pere does at least provide a stamina guarantee.

And this Christmas has been desperately short of such racing guarantees.