Ruby’s agony
Injury-plagued Walsh breaks leg again in horror fall
Ruby Walsh was leaving Cheltenham in an ambulance when Sir Tony Mccoy, his great friend and former rival, observed: “However brilliant Ruby is, people have no idea how tough he is.”
Racing can only hope Mccoy is right, because after the Cheltenham Festival’s most prolific rider rumbled off to the infirmary for a scan, it was confirmed he had reopened the fracture in a broken leg that had left him scurrying to make this year’s meeting.
Implicit in Mccoy’s remark was that pundits will wonder how many more of these blows Walsh can take, at 38, even though National Hunt jockeys have a habit of treating fractures and other bodily damage with contempt.
Like Mccoy, whose injury record doubled up as a medical dictionary, Walsh treats injuries as a rude interruption. A “banged-up” National Hunt rider tends to have only one thought: when can I get back in the saddle? And Walsh’s comeback with a winner at Thurles last Thursday was seemingly straight from the manual of well-timed runs. Victory in a £9,000 hurdle race set him up nicely for the usual book of choice rides at the Festival, which started well for him. The next thing he knew, he was under an X-ray machine while others were taking the remainder of his rides on Queen Mother Champion Chase day.
Cheltenham put Walsh back on the podium with Footpad’s win in the Arkle Chase on Tuesday and it threw him back down again with a fall at the second-last from Al Boum Photo in the RSA Chase, won impressively by Presenting Percy.
Walsh’s departure from the track was a family affair. His father, Ted, took one arm and a racecourse official hooked the other over his shoulders as Walsh was led, limping, to the ambulance. His sister, Katie, was also on hand for support.
The jockey himself later told Racing UK: “My right leg is in a cast and the fall opened the fracture at the back. I won’t know the full extent until Tuesday.”
For a man with such an injury, Walsh looked remarkably calm. Most athletes would have at least grimaced. Some would have howled and demanded oxygen. Walsh greeted this occupational hazard with typical sangfroid.
Incredible, really, because one four-month absence has morphed into another spell on the sidelines, with Aintree and Punchestown probably passing him by.
There were other, lesser victims of the fall, as a jockeys’ merry-goround began. In the very next race, the Coral Cup, Paul Townend climbed off Bleu Berry to take over on Walsh’s intended mount, Max Dynamite. You guessed it: Bleu Berry won at 20-1 for Mark Walsh, costing Townend a share of the £57,000 first prize. Walsh also had to stand down in the Queen Mother on Douvan, who went well before falling under Patrick Mullins.
Cheltenham never fails to cast light on the craziness of National Hunt riding – its volatility and fragility. Already here, we have seen Lizzie Kelly score her first Festival win, Jack Kennedy, 18, win the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle on Samcro, the most hyped horse for years, and Nico de Boinville, whose posh name belies his hard journey from groom to star race-rider, take the Queen Mother on Altior, who was uncomfortable for most of the journey but quickened dazzlingly after the last to win. On the same card, Bryony Frost, on Black Corton, fell short in her quest to follow Kelly into the winner’s enclosure.
Twenty-four hours earlier, it was
Walsh who was attracting all the praise for feats of horsemanship. Footpad was his 57th Festival winner. His 58th was not far behind: Benie Des Dieux in the Mares’ Hurdle. After Footpad, Walsh enthused: “It’s great to be back. It’s been a long winter and you wonder if it’s all worth it and then you get a winner here and you remember it all over again. The leg was all right. Physical pain can be managed.”
Physical pain can be managed, by people with such strengths, but the body is not so easily controlled. Bones and internal organs are beyond the reach of the human will. It would be idle to speculate whether Walsh came back too soon. Only he and his doctor would know. But comebacks sometimes conceal vulnerabilities. Jockeys often gamble on the healing being complete when no one can really know for sure.
Those who know him say you can forget about him walking away just yet. His supremacy round here is not in doubt. Fifty-eight Festival winners is freakish. For perspective, Barry Geraghty is next with 34. Mccoy rode 31, Richard Dunwoody 18 and Peter Scudamore 13. In those days, power was less heavily concentrated on four or five big owners, but Walsh’s record is still startling. He has been leading rider at this annual tweedy shindig 11 times, or in 11 of the last 14 years. A big-race specialist is essential round here. Walsh is an artist and a killer in the saddle. The bigger the race, the more his talent stands out.
But the job is dangerous, and there are pups snapping at his heels. When he looks back on his truncated comeback, Walsh will think of Footpad as one good reason to keep going. When Willie Mullins is your main backer, there is a always a good horse or two to dream of. But even Ruby Walsh cannot escape the laws of physics – or medicine.