Steady wins the race: Joncol was ridden aggressively for the Lexus and could benefit from a bit of restraint at Leopardstown today

Nicky Henderson has been growing increasingly anxious recently. Since the Queen's trainer resumed his day job following that embarrassing suspension for misuse of banned substances, things have been going better than ever for his stable, which seems to be bursting at the seams with talent. Idle talent, that is.

The recent malevolent weather has been getting Henderson down a little bit as it's screwed up his plans to give his stable stars prep races in advance of the big spring festivals. "The worst two months of disruption I've ever known," he complained this week. "It's been absolutely chaotic with so many meetings off, you get so fed up spending all day planning and phoning people, only to have to start again when meetings are abandoned. It's happened time after time and you really tear your hair out."

So then, let's have a quick scan of this afternoon's 'Hennessy' card at Leopardstown and see how much self-inflicted hair loss he plans to avoid by running those idlers at one of our finest and most lucrative national hunt racing days of the year. Ehrmm, so that would b e none then. Nicky. Zero. Nada. Zip.

There's no sign of Long Run, no Barber Shop, and definitely no Quantitativeeasing. Horses that have reportedly been kicking down their barn doors in need of a race are this morning back home in Berkshire, playing chess or dominoes and doing whatever it is that racehorses do on a Sunday morning while four carefully- constructed Grade One trial races with over half a million Euro in prize-money go uncontested by any of the top thirty stables in Britain.

In fairness to Henderson, he is one of the more dependable cross-channel supporters of Irish racing and normally sends a big team to the Punchestown Festival in April. But it's still annoying that neither he, Paul Nicholls, Alan King nor Jonjo can muster up a single challenger between them today.

It's their loss. Home-based trainers are in need of all the spoils at the moment anyway and besides, the one English challenger in today's big race, Money Trix, from the Nicky Richards stable, brings both a sense of foreboding and continuity of form to our season's premier Grade One chase.

The sense of foreboding, is of course, that he may be good enough to win it. The continuity is that he provides a link to the form of the Lexus Chase at Christmas where he was second to What A Friend. If he builds on that form and beats both Joncol and Cooldine, then the ship has well and truly sailed on any chance of Irish respectability in the championship - chasing division this season.

Money Trix wins plenty of races in Britain, but only at places like Kelso, Ayr and Carlisle and frankly it's disappointing that an exposed chaser who has only managed a rating of 149 is the third favourite for the year's best chase in the homeland of Arkle and Moscow Flyer.

Cooldine is probably the most talented in the field and the only one likely to get within an asses roar of Denman and Kauto Star anytime soon, but his trainer, Willie Mullins, has indicated in recent days that only race-fit horses are winning on the present heavy ground and that Cooldine might not yet be fully race fit. "I can't understand quite why Cooldine has been so heavily-backed," he reported. "He has been backed into favouritism, and I can tell you it's not my money!"

This leaves Joncol as the most probable winner. This young chaser is the height of a barn and twice as wide but for an unproven stayer he was aggressively ridden in the Lexus and a little more restraint today should do him the world of good. But the truth is still painful. While Denman and Kauto Star still soar at their current altitude, The Hennessy without either of them is an unfulfilling race. It's baffling why Nicholls is waiting until Newbury next week to give Denman a pre-Cheltenham outing when today's race was an option. The last horse to win both this race and the Gold Cup was Imperial Call in 1996 and this bleak statistic will probably extend another year.

If there is a future Gold Cup winner on show today, he could well be lurking in the long grass of the Dr. PJ Moriarty novice chase. Both Cousin Vinny and Weapon's Amnesty are already Cheltenham winners and Roberto Goldback and Zaarito are both developing into fine staying chasers. Zaarito fell here in the Arkle Chase recently, his second tumble in four starts over fences, but if he can stay vertical he may have the class and speed to further reconstruct his interrupted reputation.

There's been little interruption to the rise and rise of Dunguib and the executive team at Leopardstown will have been chewing their nails since Philip Fenton announced on Friday that his participation in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle hinges on his assessment of the ground conditions at the course on Sunday morning.

His presence will be the crowd-maker today and in this instance it's understandable, forgivable even, that the Brits have chickened out of this particular battle. Once, when the Duke of Wellington inspected his army he declared that "I don't know what effect they have on the enemy, but by God they terrify me," and Dunguib has terrified everybody.

He would arguably be a short-priced favourite for the Champion Hurdle if he was routed there, but Fenton is adamant that he will complete his novice season in his own grade and that the Supreme Novice is his target this season. Although he looks like he only has to go down and come back again to win this afternoon, the danger is that if he gets into a fight on heavy ground this highly-strung animal will leave his Cheltenham prospects behind him in Foxrock this afternoon. "He seems to recover quickly from his races, but you wouldn't want a grueller," said Fenton.

Whether or not Dunguib risks a 'grueller', the most interesting betting proposition today could be his main opponent, Willie Mullins' Fionngas. When Fionngas was beaten into third in a two- mile novice hurdle here at Christmas, he looked as if he was crying out for a trip even longer than today's two and a quarter miles and is currently trading at up to 33/1 on the exchanges for each of the longer novice hurdle races at Cheltenham.

If Dunguib doesn't run and he wins, then these prices will crash. If Dunguib does run and Fionngas finishes a close second, then his Cheltenham prices will still crash and can be layed-off for profit.

But today is all about who does and doesn't show up. Let's hope that Dunguib does and brings a ray of brilliance to a murky afternoon.