General / Jeremy Grayson / 22 February 2009 / Leave a comment

Jeremy Grayson grumbles about a new race condition already undermining the hunter chase season, but then cheers himself up with a few thoughts on the indestructable Lough Derg.

Many of you will have seen Natiain leading for much of the Eider Chase at Newcastle this last weekend, before more conservatively-ridden animals picked him off 6f out.

I wonder how many of you were aware that he is unusual in having been compelled to run in the Eider pretty much under sufferance. Compelled to run in a £50,000 handicap? No, really.

Natiain's owners Alistair and June Brown - who also train him in point-to-points and hunter chases - would rather their front-running 10yo could continue to mop up hunter contests at the Perths and Kelsos of this world all season, but the British Horseracing Authority has now reworked many such races, including two Natiain won at the latter track last term, as closed to all horses ever to have won more than three steeplechases.

The aim is to prevent well-established Rules handicappers from profiting disproportionately in hunter chases compared to genuine pointing/hunting types. The reverse is already happening, though, as the bar is on winners of more than three chases of ANY description - including hunters' races.

Natiain has won seven hunters but had never even been seen in any other mode of National Hunt racing before the Eider. Conversely, Paul Nicholls' high 130s-rated Rules chaser Ofarel D'Airy - the copybook definition of the sort of horse whose appearances in hunter chases has so enflamed opinion in recent times - seeks the hat-trick at Taunton next Thursday in one of those races now framed as "winner of no more than three".

It's going a bit Pete Tong already, then, and I doubt that this first pair of such anomalies will be the only ones this term. As my colleague Simon Rowlands is known to deadpan in the face of ill-conceived legislation/plans: "good luck with that project".

Still, what the BHA taketh with one hand it giveth with the other. Its decision to extend the deadline for horses to qualify for Cheltenham's Foxhunter Chase from February 24th to March 3rd was absolutely the right one given the weather-induced ravages on season so far. Five more hunter chases now count as "qualification" races - shame the Natiains of this world are barred from two of them. D'oh!

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Remember that Kit Kat advert years ago, where him out of Eastenders and 'Allo 'Allo plays a record company boss and tells a band of tuneless urchins, "You can't sing, you can't play, you look awful.... you'll go a long way!"?

I've decided that Lough Derg is the equine equivalent of that band.

He shouldn't work on any level as a racehorse. He's nothing special to look at; the visor's there for a reason, as he's clumsy over obstacles without it; he moves along the ground about as well as I do in six inch heels and a hobble skirt [I'm beginning to worry about you - Ed]; and he's regularly something of a bunny for better horses in the classiest staying hurdles.

But on heart and bottle, he's deserved every contest he has picked up recently. It reflects enormous credit on him that he hasn't soured after so many reversals in between the highlights this season and last (for all that the severity of his 2007-8 campaigning has been overstated - it still comprised just 11 runs in nearly six months), and even more so that he is producing the form of his life right now 41 runs into his career.

We love it at Timeform Radio when Lough Derg does well, of course, as owner Bill Frewen, trainer David Pipe and rider Tom Scudamore always love to talk to us about their charge ("The Geezer", as the last-named dubs him); but when that horse is one whose head second at Ascot off 160 last time out represented just about the finest form effort of any horse in a handicap hurdle this entire season, I don't think we can be accused of undue favouritism.

Here's a question for you. Lough Derg next runs in the Coral Cup at the Festival, off a mark set yet another 3lb higher. Given a career record of three wins from four in New Course 2m5f-2m6f hurdles, and notwithstanding a guaranteed imposte of top weight, would you still dare to lay him in-running if granted an early uncontested lead? I know I'd think twice...