Russell to join Murphy team

Top Irish amateur jockey Davy Russell has been snapped up by Ferdy Murphy as stable jockey to his powerful West Witton stable following the retirement through injury of Adrian Maguire.

Russell, 23, was leading point-to-point rider in Ireland last season and Murphy said: “The deal has been signed and he will turn professional - the Jockey Club is getting things sorted out as soon as they can.

“He will join us this week and hopefully everything will work out well as I am sure it will.”

JP McNamara will continue to ride for the yard and Murphy went on: “Ideally we would have liked Adrian to ride for us for another couple of seasons and that would have given JP a bit more time to get more experience before he could take over.

“I have spoken to him about it and he seems happy, there are plenty of horses for him to ride and he will get plenty of opportunities to gain that experience.”

And of Russell, he added: “Davy has ridden for many of the top trainers and ridden a lot of good horses in Ireland and is very experienced – he rode for me at Cheltenham a few years ago I have spoken to my owners and they are happy with the arrangement.”