Last weekend at Leopardstown, 'proper' Irish jump racing dragged itself out of bed, brushed its teeth and wearily trudged back into the office. Almost a month had passed since the big Christmas meetings had ended, but the interval had altered the landscape drastically and in a much deeper way than the icy white duvet that blanketed the country for three weeks.

During the downtime Horse Racing Ireland published a grim annual scorecard that crytallised the condition of the sport as 2009 gave way to a new decade. It had been known by all that the prognosis was poor, but even the death of a terminal patient after a long illness comes as a shock when finally confirmed. Attendances were down 11 per cent, prize money by 12 per cent, on-course betting lost over a fifth of its revenue. There were almost a third less new owners buying horses and bloodstock sales at auction were down by 32 pre cent. Over 1,500 jobs were lost last year and State subventions were repeatedly cut.

So racing trudged back to the office in the way of coalminers trudging back to the pit after a losing strike. Ruefully. And then if all that wasn't enough to drive the industry to the edge of despair, there was even worse news to come: John McCririck is releasing a single. The hairy one is being joined by a host of racing 'personalities' to record a version of Petula Clark's iconic '60s hit, 'Downtown' and although the profits will go to charity, there is still absolutely no excuse for lyrics like these:

"When you're alone and life is making you lonely you can always go – to Cheltenham. When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry seems to help, I know – at Cheltenham. Just listen to the music of those good old Irish voices. Linger by the paddock, see the horses, make your choices."

And on and on it painfully goes. The worry of course is that there could be very few of those good old Irish voices by the paddock this year but that misery can wait for another day.

At Leopardstown on Sunday the focus at last switched from frost and fiscal policy back to the racehorse and the victory of Solwhit in the Toshiba Hurdle sharpened the appetite for the upcoming Champion Hurdle in March, a race that has developed more convoluted sub plots than a Shakespearean tragedy. The drama begins with last year's race when Punjabi narrowly out battled Celestial Halo and Binocular in what was acclaimed at the time as the race of the festival.

Irish hurdlers had largely dominated this race for a decade but with Brave Inca and Hardy Eustace now past their sell by date, the best we could do was a fifth place with Muirhead. The three English-trained principals all looked like horses that could dominate top class hurdling for years. Ten months on the race has turned out to be, if not exactly a dud, one that could at least hold the fort until the duds finally get here.

Deconstructed, the race looks like this. In their 16 subsequent races the first five have only lifted two races and one of those victories came in a bad novice chase. The other was when Celestial Halo won his comeback race at Wincanton beating the 145 rated Mamlook. Celestial Halo has been soundly beaten in two Grade One hurdles since then while Punjabi and last year's third, Binocular, have been comprehensively defeated in a combined five races since.

Zoom out and view the race through a wider angled lens and things look even worse. The field of 23 has contested a collective total of 90 races between them in the interim and yielded a miserable total of eight victories. Six of these were in novice chases, which means that apart from that Celestial Halo win at Wincanton, the only winning hurdler that the race has thrown up is Sentry Duty, and he only won a three-runner Class Two contest at Cheltenham. Of course, there are lies, damned lies and statistics, but it would have to be a brave man with more money than sense who would now look to last year's outcome to find this year's winner. The answer this March surely lies elsewhere, possibly in the race that was run an hour before Punjabi repelled Celestial Halo and Binocular.

When Go Native won the Supreme Novices earlier that afternoon there was a general feeling of, "Ho hum. He would have been a remote second if Hurricane Fly had turned up." The chances are that this is the correct analysis as Hurricane has trounced him on a couple of occasions, but that particular surface needs to be scratched a little deeper.

Firstly, horses from last year's Supreme Novice have been winning frequently and last week Merdimit, who had been second to Go Native, hammered Punjabi by four lengths at Haydock. Secondly, Go Native has, on the evidence of bare form at least, improved considerably this season and in his two hurdle wins has already convincingly beaten Binocular on two occasions.

Thirdly, the vibes coming from Willie Mullins suggest that the likelihood of Hurricane Fly being ready for Cheltenham is lessening so he may not be an opponent this year either. Fourthly, he is a ground versatile horse who obviously likes the hurly burly of Gloucestershire in the spring.

Finally, and tellingly, when Donnas Palm finished second to Solwhit in the Irish Champion last week Noel Meade immediately announced that he would miss Cheltenham and go to Aintree instead. This suggests that Meade feels that Go Native alone could have the measure of Solwhit, who has, almost from nowhere, become the benchmark for Grade One hurdlers.

It's hard to believe that it was just over a year ago that Solwhit emerged from a pea soup fog at Fairyhouse to win his first race of any real note, and even then he was only rated at 127. Few believed at the time that this ugly duckling would soon become a swan, including one employee of trainer Charles Byrnes's stable who lost nearly €9,000 laying the horse to lose that day. Since then he has only been beaten once, in a muddling race at Newcastle when he was third behind Go Native.

So there is some good news afoot after all. It looks at this stage that the Champion Hurdle could be an Irish exacta, or maybe even a trio if Hurricane Fly recovers or if Philip Fenton changes his mind and reroutes Dunguib to the main race. There are still some flies such as Zaynar hovering near to the green-tinted ointment but maybe hope is returning and some music will return to those good old Irish voices.