McNamaras get their Christmas winner at Limerick

The D Pack Packaging Handicap Hurdle was a thriller with Storm Mahler (10s into 13/2 before the off) scoring by the narrowest of margins in the hands of Conor McNamara.

The five-year-old, gaining his third victory of the year, came from off the pace to lead narrowly at the last but was joined on the run-in by handicap debutant Rusheen (28/1) and the pair flashed the post locked together.

Winning trainer Eric McNamara said: "It was a finish of bobbing heads. Usually I’d have a fair idea what way the result has gone but this time I really didn’t know. It’s great that we were called as the winner because we’ve been hitting the crossbar up to this point over Christmas. It’s lovely to get one here at Limerick in particular.

"There was nothing between the front two. We got a real good jump at the last, and that was probably the winning of the race.

"The ground was really bad at Clonmel one day and we kind of had our minds made up that we wouldn’t run him in that ground again. With the ground so testing here, we had a chat about that again this morning, but because he was absolutely working particularly well and that he was in superb form, we said we’d take our chance. If it wasn’t working out, the plan was for Conor to mind him.

"The owners of this horse are the most loyal and superb people. Michael Hannon is a friend of my brother Jimmy and he’s been with me for a good while now. We’ve had a bit of success together and this horse has been lucky for us."

Quotes from Tom Weekes