Ruby: I was determined I would beat injury and it wouldn’t beat me
Walsh on why he had to retire
RUBY WALSH pulls up his trouser leg to reveal a shin with a bump the size of an egg on the side, the result of breaking his right leg five times.
The 12- time Irish champion jockey, rated by many as the best jump jockey ever, said: ‘When most people go to a hospital you get allocated a surgeon. I had their mobile numbers!
‘Brilliant surgeons who patched me back together and put me back out there. That’s not right but that’s the kind of career I had.’
Within those words is the reason 39-year-old Walsh announced the immediate end of his glittering career after winning the Punchestown Gold Cup on Willie Mullinstrained Kemboy last Wednesday.
That he survived for so long was down to the incredible survival instincts that are a job requirement for a jump jockey but also the doctors and physios Walsh was put in touch with by his friend, Ireland rugby star Ronan O’Gara.
Kemboy was the 2,756th success in Britain and Ireland of Walsh’s career that included two Cheltenham Gold Cups, five King George VI Chases, four Champion Hurdles and two Grand Nationals and a fruitful partnership with 11-time British champion trainer Paul Nicholls.
That this triumph was his last was down to discussions with his wife Gillian last summer as the rider recuperated from the fall at the 2018 Cheltenham Festival that aggravated the latest leg fracture.
The winner of a record 59 Cheltenham Festival wins was determined that retirement would be, in his terms, not a stretcher ride out of the spotlight.
Walsh said: ‘I always tried to look at things and say somewhere there is someone else a lot worse off than me. Every negative has a positive but sometimes you have to look harder for them.
‘You can’t walk around feeling sorry for yourself, but you realise how hard you are working to get back to where you were. I had broken my leg five times. If I had broken it again it would just have been torture.
‘I have broken my right tibia. The fibula breaks as well but that doesn’t count. The tibia is the bone you have to worry about.
‘It’s fairly crooked and the last time the recovery was longer than the one before. They can’t even operate on it now but it’s all perfect because of the rehab.
‘I was determined I would beat injury and injury would not beat me. I was determined I would go out the way I wanted to go out.
‘Me and Gillian had plenty of chats about it and Gillian, being more realistic than me, was preparing me for not getting my fairytale finale but thankfully I got it.
‘There was never going to be a good time to retire but there was going to be a time when I wasn’t going to be riding.’
During his career, Walsh ruptured his spleen, broke both wrists and dislocated and fractured hips. Crushing a T7 vertebra hardly seems worth mentioning.
Again, it could only be a jockey who said: ‘Physical pain goes after a couple of days. The mental pain of having to watch racing while you recovered stayed a lot longer. That was way harder.
‘You can overcome physical pain. Women wouldn’t have more than one child if they couldn’t overcome physical pain.’
Throughout this season Walsh knew he was on the last lap but never let it slip. There were whispers when his family turned up at Aintree for the Grand National and Walsh concedes he would have called it a day there and then if Rathvinden had won rather than finish third to Tiger Roll.
But then, despite winning the Irish National on Burrows Saint on Easter Monday at Fairyhouse, there was only one place to finish a career which began with a win on Siren Song at Gowran Park in July 1995 — Punchestown, his local track. Walsh said only seven people knew what he intended to do. Five were from his family and two close friends.
He definitely did not want the final lap of honour enjoyed by his great friend and rival, Sir Anthony McCoy.
Walsh said: ‘I didn’t want that for fear it all went wrong. I knew going to Cheltenham that I would not be there as a jockey again and I wouldn’t be riding at Aintree again but I don’t think it changed my approach.
‘ The last three strides on Kemboy I knew that was it but I was delighted that was it.
‘I didn’t want the profile of a send-off. I wanted to go out there and do it with no distractions.
‘Everyone is different. That was the right thing for me, for my personality.’
Walsh has already had to watch the first Grade One winner that he would have ridden — Chacun Pour Soi at Punchestown on Thursday. But he has no regrets.
Now he is looking forward to helping out coaching daughters Isabelle, Gemma, Elsa and Erica at football and maybe taking them skiing. He wouldn’t mind ‘taking in a few games at the Rugby World Cup in Japan’ later this year.
He might have ridden in his last race, but after taking just two days off he was back riding out for Willie Mullins on Saturday.
Walsh said: ‘I don’t do idle. I will be back at work on Monday. I have four daughters who will hopefully go to university and I will to pay for all of that.
‘Horses have been my life. They are all I know. I am somehow going to have to manufacture a career out of horses in some shape or form.’
I think he might just manage it somehow.