RACING: If the long range weather forecast from Dublin's Met Office that was broadcast on Radio Eireann yesterday morning is on the mark, then frost not rain will be the hazard facing our course executives next week.

As they saw it more Dickensian-style winter weather is rolling in on top of us and when you tie this in to the statisticians approach to the subject which indicates frost on at least half the January mornings over the last half century, I predict that unpaid stewards attached to racecourses with near-at-hand fixtures can resign themselves to leaving the warmth of their beds to conduct a series of earning morning course inspections.

That will not apply to this weekend where Cork and Naas are still sufficiently rain-soaked to fight off Jack Frost. Their stewards can sleep on and seemingly it was tactics of this nature conducted by Paul Carberry on Dee-One-O-One at Punchestown on New Year's Eve that enabled the mare to credit Pat Martin with his first winner over fences in at least a decade.

Now there are plenty of licence holders who have not won a chase in that time span but I doubt whether any of them could match the flat and hurdles record of Pat who places cheap horses remarkably well. With a fixed penalty she can beat The Moyne Machine at today's McCarthy Insurance Group-sponsored meeting at Cork.

Arthur Moore, who finds value for money when he goes shopping in France, has found another likely jumper in that quarter in Kaoutchou (3.15) who can win at third time of asking in the country. He was unplaced in a Punchestown Festival bumper and then was best placed at the finish of a pre-Christmas Thurles Maiden Hurdle won by the odds-on chance Poulakerry.

Masteroffoxhounds (3.45) may be almost half the age of his amateur partner John Magnier but when he parades in the fading light this afternoon, it will ònly be his third racecourse start. Bred by Gita Weld whose son Dermot was a teenage prodigy in the saddle, he got a stylish ride from Magnier at Thurles to win from Willie John Daly.