The return of the king truly a day to savour
Three wins on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival is, in itself, a standout achievement. Coming on the back of a four-month, injury-enforced, absence, it would be miraculous were it achieved by anyone but the Kildare pilot.
People worship — or at least they used to — at the altar of Tiger Woods. They swoon over the exploits of Lionel Messi but Walsh is a modern-day sporting phenomenon in his own right and one we will only really appreciate when he is gone.
Yesterday’s windfall brought to 30 the amount of wins in this beautiful corner of England in the month of March. Who knows what the number will be when he retires?
The performance in yesterday’s festival opener said it all. Walsh has won bigger and better races but the manner in which he put his period of inactivity behind him to claim victory on board Al Ferof on such a grand stage was a worthy addition to the legend. Run over two miles and half a furlong, Al Ferof and Walsh never looked a factor in the race’s main plot line until the closing yards of the Supreme Novice’s Hurdle, when they steamed past Spirit Son and Sprinter Sacre.
As a moment, it was almost cartoonish: a real live version of the Road Runner leaving Wile E Coyote choking comically in his dust and disappears over the horizon.
It was a stunning opening gambit by a man who will saddle far more fancied rides this week and Paul Nicholls, Al Ferof’s trainer, hardly hesitated in applauding the performance of his No 1.
“Ruby Walsh’s judgement of pace was unbelievable,” said Nicholls. “I thought we were running for fourth, then I thought we were running for third and then I just thought ‘crikey’ and he came through to win.”
Nicholls also remarked that, if ever anyone needed that win, it was Walsh. To see the 31-year old enter the parade ring with the broadest of grins and blackest of bruises under his eye suggested Nicholls had it spot on.
The racing nation held its breath when Walsh came a cropper in Naas last week and it hardly bears thinking about what yesterday’s fare would have amounted to had he been watching from the railings. Only once did the smile disappear from his face in the winning enclosure in three visits and that was when he croaked briefly in listing off the people who helped him through the long, dark days of rehabilitation.
“I had a very bad break on my leg and David Moore the surgeon and Mr McMullen in Belfast did a great job. Brian Green, who works with the IRFU, has done a wonderful job with my conditioning, mentally as much as physically, and of course my own family. I can’t have been that easy to live with for the last four months, so fair play to Gillian (his wife).”
Life at the Walsh place will be a lot easier for the foreseeable future now after Walsh followed up that opening gambit with further successes on board Hurricane Fly in the Champion Hurdle and Quevega in the Mares’ Hurdle.
If Al Ferof was a personal triumph for Ruby, Hurricane Fly’s was the victory that lit the touch paper to the entire week for the Irish who roared their hero into the enclosure. “He is a wonderful horse but he did it the hard way,” said the man who once claimed seven winners in a week in these parts. “Fair play to Willie Mullins and Paul Townend. They did all the hard work and I just had to lead him around today.”
No-one believes that last bit for a second but it is a description that would carry much greater weight were it attached to the last of his three successes, when claiming the hat-trick of Mares Hurdles on board the serene Quevega. “She’s a remarkable little mare,” he said. “She jumped super, travelled super. She has so much class and she settles a lot better than she did as a younger mare. She is just the perfect ride.”
