InterviewEric McNamara
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'I had 60 horses, then the recession hit and I had eight - but we've been lucky'
Colm Greaves talks to the resurgent Limerick trainer prior to his Thyestes tilt
Colm GreavesFeatures writer
Eric McNamara (right): runs Donkey Years in the Thyestes Chase on ThursdayCredit: Patrick McCann
Mark Twain famously mused that “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”. Clearly the great American humourist had never attended a race meeting on a bitterly cold afternoon in Ireland in the middle of January.
If it was warmth that you were seeking last Monday, then Punchestown was the last place you’d look.
Eric McNamara sent one runner to the meeting from his stables near Rathkeale in County Limerick, a journey of 200 kilometres and then the same again home through the frosty winter darkness.
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Copymore inInterviews
- 'You probably only get five proper darts at a big race each year, so you have to deliver - and I think I've got a massive chance'
- ‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’
- ‘I’ll be there to see the kids open their presents but then it’s a coffee, bang, out the door’ - life in a racing yard at Christmas
- ‘I miss the craic of going racing but it’s a young person’s game these days - and I don’t know how they survive, to be honest’
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'
more inInterviews
- 'You probably only get five proper darts at a big race each year, so you have to deliver - and I think I've got a massive chance'
- ‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’
- ‘I’ll be there to see the kids open their presents but then it’s a coffee, bang, out the door’ - life in a racing yard at Christmas
- ‘I miss the craic of going racing but it’s a young person’s game these days - and I don’t know how they survive, to be honest’
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'