THE COLD weather continues to be a spoilsport with Leopardstown holding a 7.30am inspection this morning but it was the 10 to 1 shot Oscar Time who travelled under the radar to burn the bookies in yesterday's €190,000 Paddy Power Chase.
Much of the 28-strong field - including the massively-gambled on Dooneys Gate and Ruby Walsh - might have been in contention at the second last fence of the hugely valuable handicap but at the line it was another Grand National winning rider, Robbie Power, doing the celebrating.
He had time too as Oscar Time burst seven lengths clear of the pack to beat Siegemaster and Leanne and quickly put the result to bed. It was the most valuable success of Martin Lynch's training career and Power was quick to pay tribute to him.
"If anyone else trained this horse he would have been favourite today. Martin has a small yard but he knows what he is doing and this horse's form was all in the book," said Power who memorably landed the 2007 Aintree National on Silver Birch.
Lynch was a successful jockey in his own right in the 1980s, winning a Vincent O'Brien Gold Cup on Nick The Brief and a Leopardstown Chase on Seskin Bridge, as well as landing a Mildmay Of Flete at the Cheltenham festival on Elfast.
Now based in Castletown-Geoghegan, Co Westmeath, he momentarily felt like returning to the saddle again. "Standing there watching someone else riding is much harder. I told Robbie not to hit the front until the last and it's a good job he couldn't hear me when he took it up. But in fairness he was going so well he had to kick on," Lynch said.
"This was the plan. He was a very forlorn horse after he fell at Limerick (last April) and we ran him over hurdles to boost his confidence. Then we thought we would set him up for a decent prize and there's none more decent than this," he added.
"We've been pretty frozen at home but maybe that was a blessing because I couldn't over-train him!"
The prospects of racing going ahead today will depend on the impact of a serious frost that was forecast to get down to minus five degrees overnight. "It will be a severe frost and it will be slow to clear so that's why we are going to inspect," said Leopardstown's clerk of the course Joe Collins.
Today's scheduled feature at Leopardstown is the €150,000 Lexus Chase. There will also be weather concerns in Britain where Chepstow will inspect this morning ahead of their Welsh National card. Operation Houdini is the Irish contender for that marathon event.
Even on a bright afternoon yesterday, the weather still impacted on the action as two hurdle races, including the Grade One Future Champion Novice Hurdle, were run with no hurdle jumped in the straight.
In the opening race a low-lying sun caused a shadow at the take-off side of the final obstacle that Ruby Walsh believed caused Secant Star, who looked an assured winner, to crash out.
As a result the two following hurdle races had extra-long run-ins and Robbie Power for one believed that that cost him a major big-race double as his mount Saludos just failed to Hollo Ladies in the Future Champions.
"I think I'd have won on Saludos if the last hurdle was there. But this makes up for that," he said after Oscar Time's Paddy Power victory. A crowd of 14,605 were at Leopardstown yesterday, an almost 1,500 drop on last year's corresponding figure. It followed the St Stephen's Day pattern where a 14,552 attendance was down over 2,000 on 2008.
Betting figures were down on St Stephen's Day and that was also true yesterday with bookmaker turnover of €1,432,794, down almost €200,000, and the Tote figure of €522,065 dropped €55,000 on last year.
