RACING:Robbie Hennessy may not have got the rain he was hoping for but he's still optimistic about Rubi Light's festival chances, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR

ROBBIE HENNESSY is hardly the only one turning his face to the sky and praying this week but he’s one of the few hoping for rain to fall out of it.

Whatever the ground conditions ahead of today’s Ryanair Chase, Rubi Light will be a real player. But there’s no getting away from how he will be even more of a player if he can get his hooves stuck into soft going.

From the moment Andrew Lynch’s feet touched the ground when dismounting Rubi Light after last year’s Ryanair, the nagging voice has been in Hennessy’s mind that if conditions had been softer his horse would have won.

Lynch had no doubt. Third was brilliant, but with a dig in the surface, Rubi Light would have beaten Alberta’s Run and Co. Nothing that the French bred has done since has diluted that conviction. A Grade One victory in the John Durkan, and an ideal warm-up prep at Gowran a month ago has Rubi Light back at the Ryanair in perfect shape.

“Last year it was on the fast side of good and he ran brilliantly,” says Hennessy. “But he is better with a dig and I just hope Cheltenham have done a good job with their watering.”

Should Rubi Light emerge victorious it will be a family triumph to buck the trend of how the best horses and the biggest victories are being increasingly confined to an ever smaller number of hands. But this is one family that already knows how beating the odds feels.

Sublimity carried Bill Hennessy’s colours to a memorable Champion Hurdle success just five years ago when his son played a key role in the preparation that was overseen by John Carr.

Robbie Hennessy rode the horse in his work before handing the reins to Philip Carberry on the racecourse and watching Carr get the plaudits for training the horse to a 16 to 1 upset.

The Dubliner knew what it was like to ride winners. He had ridden some on the flat in Australia. When he returned to Ireland he rode over jumps for a couple of years. He rode Uncle Bart to victory three times, including in a novices hurdle at the 1993 Galway Festival, and he rode his father’s Kharasar in the 1995 County Hurdle at Cheltenham.

But training was always what he really wanted to do.

In 2009 he took the plunge. Sublimity gave him his first winner – in a Grade One. Today he trains up to 15 horses in an expensively redeveloped yard near Ratoath. His father Bill’s colours will this time be carried by a horse recommended to him by Philip Carberry. But crucially it is the son who is in charge, despite the father still being referred to as “the boss.”

“Only for my father I wouldn’t be doing it. I’m very lucky the boss man is behind me,” Hennessy admits. “There are lots of small trainers out there and I don’t know how they’re surviving. But my Dad has always been willing to buy a good horse.”

Rubi Light came from France where Carberry is now based and immediately made an impression with his jumping when clearing a five-bar gate from almost a standing start to conduct his own personal inspection of the Irish countryside. Recapturing him intact has been the boon that Hennessy’s new career needed.

“It’s very important in this game to have what we call a ‘weekend horse’, a horse that can take you to the top races,” the trainer says. “My father has had good horses down the years and that’s what interests him. I think he’d rather stay at home than go to Thurles or Clonmel on a Thursday. And this is that kind of horse.”

Hennessy is convinced Rubi Light is a more mature and stronger horse compared to last year and the evidence of a Lexus Chase second at Christmas suggests the Ryanair distance is perfect for him.

The one thing missing that would make things perfect is some muck. But perfection is overrated and Rubi Light may well not need it to win.