Ruby Walsh: Despite current injury, Paul Townend looking good for a fourth jockeys title

Sat, 25 Sep, 2021 - 06:00

The excitement that the short evenings bring to a National Hunt jockey is unique. As a regular person, I dread them now, like my love of rain has changed places with my hatred of the sun. Everything that winter entails is what I used to live for but, Christmas aside, I already can’t wait for spring.

The excitement as autumn dawned in August - yes, that’s when it officially starts - and Willie Mullins’ yard filled with fat, sunbaked horses was always exciting. It still is, but it always brings fear too. Who, what or when would some bad news arrive?

The high-profile early season departure from Closutton this season is Monkfish. Last season’s leading staying novice chaser, a dual Cheltenham Festival winner and ready-made Gold Cup contender, hasn’t even made it into Willie Mullins’ stable tour.

It doesn’t matter who you are or how big an outfit you run, a star like him going missing for a season is a blow. It is a blow for his owner, Rich Ricci, who has also retired the high achieving stable stalwart Min, meaning two big names have gone from his team sheet. That’s National Hunt racing, one injured but on the mend, the other heading off for as a good retirement as he had a career.

The injury picked up by Paul Townend in Listowel will just about have rounded off his week. The loss of a Gold Cup contender like Monkfish will have hurt him too, and six or eight weeks on the sidelines is something he could have done without as he will be thinking about his standing in the jockeys’ championship.

Davy Russell and Jack Kennedy have returned to action but look too far off the pace already. The rumour mill has Rachael Blackmore’s recovery on track, but no date has seeped out about when that might be and, crucially for Paul, when she does return, she will affect the pacesetter, Darragh O’Keeffe.

He leads Paul by nine, with a score of 31, to the conditional sensation Jordan Gainford’s 26, Paul and Rachel both on 22, each just one in front of Danny Mullins on 21, who is due back very soon, and Shane Fitzgerald on the same score.

It is quite a while since two conditional jockeys have racked up such tallies so quickly, but the spread of winners is amazing. One on 30, seven with 20 or more and 13 in the double digits has 20 jockeys enjoying decent summer seasons.

I can’t remember such a crowded title race five months into a season, but injuries have played their part for all the leading contenders. That said, someone near the top will need to have 50 on the board before Paul returns to keep him at bay, and I can’t see that happening.

He won’t believe that. Nobody in his position ever does, but he will only need average luck to retain his crown from a mid-November return date.

Listowel is nearly over, and what a joy it was to be there with excited, enthusiastic racegoers. Two-thousand-ish a day when you have gotten used to no one felt like a whole lot more, especially with the noise and atmosphere they generated.

The eerie silence replaced by applause and cheers was so welcome, and as you thought back on all the successes of the last 20 months, you realised just what people had missed.

At the very best, a few hundred have witnessed all the great Irish racing moments for the last while, yet you could see for real what those successes meant.

None of them were carried back into a winner’s enclosure on a wave of noise or thundered past the post to raucous applause. Nobody got bombarded with congratulations as they walked off a stand or jumped and danced with their friends as they waited to greet their winner.

No, the joy on all the Irish faces for so long now has just been pride, delight at a personal achievement and the exciting shock of winning. We have been witnessing what it means and not just what atmosphere can make people feel.

Those victories are no greater or no less, just the same as they always were. It was unique to each person involved, but it made me think when Shane Fitzgerald was applauded away from the TG4 interview area like a true hero to those gathered around him after his victory aboard Assemble in the Kerry National.

It was a noise alien to racecourses for so long, a noise that could have been and should have been afforded to so many people who achieved notable firsts during the Covid lockdown.

The noise that makes you almost blush as you realise that noise is for you. It’s a particular noise only a few hear, and Covid has robbed people of much worse things, but I hope all of those who missed out will get their chance again now normal is being restored.