Easy to get carried away with Sub Lieutenant

On Monday morning, a trifle unexpectedly, a great old pal rang. He was literally bursting with enthusiasm.

He had spent the previous afternoon at the Munster National meeting at Limerick and to say it had lit a fire under him would be an understatement.

At work on Monday, he was still buzzing. It wasn’t the National, however, that had fired his imagination, but rather the performance of Sub Lieutenant in a conditions chase. Listening to him talking told you exactly why the relatively new concept of “champions’ weekend’’ on the flat will never be able to compete with the best of what’s on offer with National Hunt racing.