A winner all right

HE might be a familiar face in the village of Kilcullen in Co Kildare but even the regulars in Bardons are forced to do a double-take when Ruby Walsh pops in for lunch.

It’s the eye that has it — or, rather, an angry red scar beneath the right eye, the ugly-looking war-wound from a nasty fall at Naas. “Two stitches and a bit of glue,” was all it took to put things right, according to Ruby, even though on-lookers at the track initially feared the consequences might be much worse when, having crashed to the turf with King Of The Refs, the full weight of the chasing Boro Bee came down on top of the jockey, grinding the side of his head into the ground.

The incident was variously reported next day as a “nasty fall” and a “Cheltenham scare” but, even as he lay on the turf, Walsh says he knew immediately, from hard-won experience, that the damage would be no more than “superficial”.