Champion to captain visiting team in Limerick Jockeys’ Challenge

CANCER-BEATING, Grand National winning jockey, Bob Champion, will pay a flying visit to Limerick tomorrow to captain the visiting team in the annual Jockeys' Challenge at Limerick Racecourse.

Champion’s love of the sport is undiminished, but pressure of time in light of his work in helping others replicate his achievements means he now has other priorities - in particular the Bob Champion Cancer Trust.

“I’m still involved in racing a little but the Cancer Trust started taking more and more time and I felt I should put my efforts into it because I was very fortunate,” he said yesterday.

“We have just opened up a new research laboratory looking mainly into prostate cancer, which has overtaken lung cancer as the biggest killer of men.”

Captaining the home team will be Kicking King's trainer Tom Taaffe.

Irish Team: Captain: Tom Taaffe, Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty, Davy Russell, John Cullen, Paul Carberry, Tom Ryan.

Visiting Team: Captain: Bob Champion, Mick Fitzgerald, Andrew Thornton, Leighton Aspell, Pat Brennan, Jamie Moore, Sam Thomas.