President’s Award

HWPA President’s Award RUBY WALSH

B Y M A R C U S T O W N E N D

Who’s the best? It’s a question every sports journalist gets asked with no possible objective answer.

Messi or Ronaldo? Hamilton or Schumacher? Woods or Nicklaus? Federer or Sampras? You pay your money and make your choice. The only certainty is that to be the subject of one of these questions makes you pretty special.

Where racing was concerned, Ruby Walsh’s name was often in the question. Better than McCoy? Dunwoody? It’s that impossible question again.

But where there was certainty was that any jumps finish in which Ruby was involved guaranteed a mixture of sporting excellence and sporting art.

It made him one of the few public figures – and not just in sport –recognisable just by his christian name.

Ruby’s record is out there for all to see. A winner of 213 Grade 1 races. Champion jockey in Ireland 12 times. Leading rider at the Cheltenham Festival 11 times.

A dual winner of both the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup, the latter thanks to a hugely rewarding partnership with the iconic Kauto Star, who also delivered him five wins in the King George VI Chase.

A full list of the top horses he was associated with would fill most of this brochure on its own: Annie Power, Big Buck’s, Denman, Faugheen, Hurricane Fly, Master Minded - where do you stop?

Here was a jockey so good that champion trainers on either side of the Irish Sea – Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins – were prepared to share his services rather than go without.

Ruby literally did it all in jump racing, but what made even more special was the way he did it.

There’s no question he could get tough in the saddle when he wanted to, but his style was more often understated. Patient. Thoughtful. In the blood and thunder of battle, as the mud and birch flew all around him, Ruby would exude calmness under pressure.

He looked in control of his situation, empathetic with his mounts and seemingly with a second-sight as to how events might unfold.

It helped make him the man for the big occasion, the player on the major stages. When the Cheltenham Festival came round every year, or the Grand National, sports editors were happy if you could tell them you had an interview planned with Ruby Walsh and his picture to put on the front page of the supplement.

That wasn’t just because Ruby was likely to be riding some of the best horses.

His eloquence in the saddle was matched by his eloquence out of it. Sure, he could occasionally be a moody so-and-so – he’ll admit that –but more often than not he developed into a dream interviewee.

In an increasingly sanitised world, he was a sportsman who was prepared to take a view and express it. An interviewer grabbing time with Ruby Walsh could count upon coming away with something in their notebook worth writing about.

Then there were the injuries that increased the fascination with him, especially outside the sport.

From fracturing his leg in the 1999 Pardubice to aggravating another leg fracture on the second day of the 2018 Cheltenham Festival having only just won a race to be fit enough to ride - Ruby’s body took such a battering that many wondered where he found the resolve to keep putting it on the line.

When Ruby announced his retirement at the Punchestown Festival in May after winning the Gold Cup on Kemboy, the celebration was mixed with sadness.

The joy was that Ruby had exited his stage on top, winning another iconic race at his local track, surrounded by his friends and family. But there was also the realisation that a defining era in our sporting memories was close to an end.

Barry Geraghty and Dicky Johnson still fly the flag for their generation, but Ruby has followed McCoy into retirement. The guard is changing and with it the names that have commanded miles of column inches over the last two decades.

It will seem strange when the big meetings come around and Ruby Walsh’s name is not on the racecard, but at least his voice and views will still be heard on ITV and Racing TV.

Knowing Ruby, it will not be boring.