Ted Walsh praises timing of Durkan Chase Ted Walsh believes that a slight tweak in the timing of the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase (Grade 1) has added to it's appeal by making it a more attractive option to trainers. The well known pundit said in a recent interview with Dave Keena: "Yeah, great horses have won the Durkan. All the great horses have won the Durkan. It was a great innovation there 20 or 25 years ago and it's a fitting name and it's going to be there for ever more. "It's a lovely time of the year. They done a great job in bringing it back a week as well too. It gives everyone an extra week to Christmas. It was inclined to be a week later and there wasn't enough time for a lot of horses to maybe recover if they got a hardish race to run at Christmas. Now it just fits in lovely."
