RUBY WALSH RETIRES

“I was going to go out when I won a big one” RUBY WALSH

A crowd of 18,887 were in attendance on day two of the Punchestown Festival, the day that Ruby Walsh hung up his riding boots immediately after partnering Kemboy (Voix Du Nord) to victory in the Gr.1 Punchestown Gold Cup. “I was going to go out when I won a big one. After Min was beaten yesterday I knew I had Kemboy, Bapaume, Melon and Benie Des Dieux to come. I’m not a poker player and when Kemboy won I wasn’t going to roll the dice again,” said Walsh.

Explaining his decision Walsh said: “To me the decision probably came last summer. I felt if I could get through this year without injury I would get out at Punchestown. I was always taught that it’s all about the big occasion. That’s what it was all about. I suppose being honest, if Rathvinden had won the Grand National I would have gone out on him, there is no bigger day than that. “But I always said I would go out on a winner. I had talked to Gillian [wife] about it for a while and there comes a time that you want to do something else and I have been a jump jockey for 24 years, I am nearly 40 and I want to do something different for the next 24 or 25 years.” “I have been so lucky since day one to ride so many incredible horses. I never dreamt I would get to ride the equine athletes that I have, and no jockey is any good without the horses, and the horses are such a huge part of it.

From the very beginning, with Imperial Call here 20 years ago to Alexander Banquet, Kauto Star, Master Minded, Big Buck’s, Hurricane Fly, Annie Power, Quevega, Kemboy, Un De Sceaux. In anyone’s lifetime, I rode the best horses.” Twelve times the Champion Irish National Hunt jockey, Walsh’s first victory came aboard Siren Song (Warning) at Gowran Park in July 1995, trained by his father Ted. At the conclusion of his career, he had amassed a total of 2768 victories. Twice the Irish Amateur Champion Jockey, he announced himself as a jockey of note with his Grand National victory aboard Papillon (Lafontaine), a contest he would succeed in again five years later aboard Hedgehunter (Montelimar), trained by Willie Mullins.

He enjoyed remarkable success during his career-long association with Willie Mullins and during his time with Paul Nicholls, whom he joined in October 2002. He left his position as number one at Ditcheat in May 2013 having long divided his time between Britain and Mullins’s in Ireland. In addition to the two Grand National’s, in the 2004/2005 season he was aboard the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh National winners, and won Britain’s biggest chase, the Gr.1 Cheltenham Gold Cup twice, both times aboard Kauto Star (Village Star) in 2007 and 2009, a horse he would partner to a record five Gr.1 King George VI Chases. Rider of Hurricane Fly (Montjeu) in 16 of the horse’s 22 Gr.1 victories, barely a big race on either side of the Irish Sea eluded Walsh, who rode Blackstairmountain (Imperial Ballet) to victory in the 2013 Gr.1 Nakayama Grand Jump, two versions of the Gr.1 Grande Course d’Haies de Auteuil on Thousand Stars (Grey Risk) in 2011 and 2012, and in 2015 he won the Australian Grand National on Bashboy (Perugino).

Jockey Ruby Walsh after winning The Punchestown Gold Cup with Kemboy and announcing his retirement alongside