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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more inInterviews
- George Scott: 'Things had to change for us to stay in the conversation - and I think it's allowed us to become relevant again'
- Rose Dobbin: 'You go to the races nervous and your worst fears would come true'
- Rod Street: 'Racing spends a lot of time talking to itself in a bubble - we're not blessed with people who inhabit the wider world'
- 'There's a time to be serious because it's a multi-million-pound business - but you've got to have a laugh'
- 'All of us who ply our trade training horses are dreamers - to put so much into it you must have a dream'