RACING: Brian O'Connor talks to Straffan trainer Tom Taaffe about his chances of landing tomorrow's Pierse Hurdle

On WednesdayTom Taaffe made a quick visit to Leopardstown, walked the track and didn't like what he saw.

Not that he was surprised at any dramatic change from the racecourse he used to prosper on as a jockey. No, it was just as he remembered it. That was the problem.

Leopardstown's Herculean effort in staging the last day of its Christmas Festival meeting has taken its toll. Ground that had been reserved for tomorrow's Pierse Hurdle was used up.

As a result, the rails are being moved more and more to the inside and at Leopardstown, the further in, the more trouble awaits.

"Any experienced professional jockey will tell you hard luck stories about the inside track. It's just the way it is; lots of runners, some of them coming back and no room to get around them. The best horse doesn't always win around that track. When I walked it, it looked very tight from the third last hurdle to the finishing post.

"I remember I rode Rare Order in what was then the Ladbroke around that course and I was crucified, found every bit of trouble going. Every time I made a move, the door closed. On such a tight track, it's often down to just luck who wins," Taaffe says.

One bad experience hasn't soured him off the race, however. Tomorrow Taaffe will saddle Emotional Moment in what is now the Pierse Hurdle and whatever luck has in store, the horse does have a substantial amount of "previous" in his corner.

Under its other incarnations as the Ladbroke and the Sweeps, Taaffe, in partnership with Arthur Moore, strangled the race from 1983 to 1988.

Back then it was an even more competitive race than it is now but still the Taaffe-Moore team won it four times in six years.

It's one of those quirks of fate that for weeks Emotional Moment has played second fiddle in the ante-post market to the latest Moore hot-pot, Janidou.

Whatever about the price, however, no horse goes into tomorrow's contest on a hotter streak of form.

Just over a year ago, Emotional Moment won a tiny race at Limerick off a handicap mark of just 63. Since then his rate of improvement has followed an upward graph that would have any company director hugging himself.

What followed were wins at Down Royal in January off 72 and Gowran the same month off 81. After his summer break, however, that line has reached for the roof.

Wexford in October off 91, a valuable pot at Down Royal off 98 and then last month at Navan, Emotional Moment won off 106 and what is more won easily.

Compared to a year ago, the horse is rated almost four stone better and who is to say the winning run is finished.

It's a hot-streak that advertises Taaffe's training abilities better than any words can, but the Straffan-based trainer knows a bit more quality on top of all the quantity could make a huge difference to his own career.

The search for such a prestige pot had the 39-year-old trainer originally targeting Newbury's Tote Gold Trophy but the Pierse can be taken in en route.

"I thought the track at Newbury would suit him better but I also think it is a very open race at Leopardstown and he is not without a chance of getting in the first three or four," he says.

The fact that Taaffe is willing to let him take his chance in the Leopardstown contest is significant in itself. The weather has made preparation difficult in the last week but when Norman Williamson is given the leg up it will be from someone who knows what it takes to win one of Ireland's most valuable cavalry charges.

"We haven't been able to do much except cantering and hacking but everyone's in the same boat," Taaffe says.

"Times of 3:48 to 3:59 on winter ground say it all about the type of race it is. It has changed over the last few years with the restriction to 0-136.

"That has taken out the better ones and favours the less penalised horses," he adds.

Emotional Moment hardly figures as one of those but the secret of big handicaps, whatever the circumstances, is often to follow the horse on the improve and no horse fills that role in the Pierse better.

"He really strengthened up on his summer break and he has been improving at an alarming rate since. He was trained for Down Royal which he won by only half a length and he only ran at Navan for the penalty to get into the Newbury race," he says.

As for dangers, and putting one over on his former boss, Moore, Taaffe replies: "If there are 28 runners, then there are 27 to beat. There are a dozen there you can make a good case for. But luck will be so important - especially on the track."

In one vital sense, however, no one involved in tomorrow's big race will be better able to put things into context.

On New Year's Eve, seven-year-old Caoimhe Freyne, a daughter of Taaffe's first cousin, tragically died in a house fire in Co Kildare.

It puts any race into its trivial box. But in the circumstances there would be no more appropriate winner than Emotional Moment.