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Connell has grounds for concern with Marine Nationale

By Racing TV

Last Updated: Tue 27 Jan 2026

Barry Connell will “play it by ear” with plans for Marine Nationale this weekend, after torrential rain on Monday left Leopardstown unraceable on Tuesday.

The current champion chaser is hot favourite for the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase on Sunday, but owner-trainer Connell has always maintained his stable star is not at his best on heavy ground.

Despite the efforts of Storm Chandra, the meeting is expected to survive, although the ground looks guaranteed to be testing and Connell is prepared to leave his decision until as late as possible.

“It’s under water at the moment. Our intention is to run subject to it being a reasonable surface,” said Connell.

“Peter Roe (head of racing for Horse Racing Ireland) rang me on Monday and said it was yielding to soft and now it’s under a foot of water.

“The M50 was closed today, I’ve never seen rain like it around here so I don’t know. If the ground is anything reasonable we’ll run, but at this stage I wouldn’t know if it is going to be on.

“The worry is there’s more rain coming later in the week so we’ll play it by ear and see what the state of play is at declaration time.”

The County Kildare handler added: “You would never believe it could be like this, it’s freaky, the whole area around here was gridlocked this morning.”

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