Ruby Walsh retirement: What next for Closutton?

There are 11 days in May when the British public can watch horse racing on free-to-air TV – TV Focus buyers take note – and the chances of seeing Ruby Walsh on media duty at the tracks, albeit probably for Racing TV rather than ITV, have increased dramatically following his retirement. Though all those meetings are on the Flat, Walsh’s succinct and acerbic media work – which echoes the style of his dad Ted – works adequately on the level, for all Walsh Jnr’s insight into jumping a fence is more pertinent than his view on jumping out of the gates around Chester’s Roodee over the coming week.

While Walsh bows out having ridden over 2,500 winners and with more Cheltenham Festival successes to his name (59) than any other rider in history, his 24-year career has been more about those big days in the spotlight than the relentless pursuit of winners a la Tony McCoy and Richard Johnson. But who was the best?

It’s an almost impossible question to answer, and one that even Harry Hill’s fake fights on TV Burp would fail to resolve, but the image below shows the career-high performances for each jockey on Timeform ratings.

That in itself suggests little, with each jockey having ridden for different stables/owners at different peaks of power, but there is a feeling – as AP McCoy alluded to when describing Walsh as the Lionel Messi of jockeyship – that Walsh’s less animated riding style allowed horses to produce performances above and beyond what they could for other jockeys. Or at least appeared to visually.

It’s no surprise that Walsh’s pinnacle over fences came on Kauto Star (2009 King George VI Chase), though his hurdling high on Faugheen in the 2016 Irish Champion Hurdle may have been harder to dredge up from the back of the brain; I had assumed it would have come on Big Buck’s (172), though it could just have easily have come on Hurricane Fly (171).

Though I have always associated Walsh generally with patient, waiting rides, Walsh’s style was actually much more eclectic. Of course, it helps to be often riding the best horse in the race, but his recent front-running rides on the likes of Min, Kemboy and Klassical Dream at Aintree highlighted that he was equally adept when making the running, and – as the graph below shows – he did it regularly and to good effect.

As Walsh himself admits, the best way to ride big-race winners is to get on the best horses, and the key to his long and successful career lied as much with his patrons as with his ability. Walsh rode the top horses in tandem for Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins, and his return to ride full-time in Ireland helped cement Mullins’ domination of Irish horse racing.

While Walsh’s future lies in front of the camera, Paul Townend’s remains in the spotlight. The 28-year-old – who was Irish jump racing Champion Jockey for the 2010/11 season as well as the one that finished on Saturday – has always been more than just a capable understudy to Walsh, and his Cheltenham Gold Cup win on Al Boum Photo elevated him if not to a household name, then hopefully somewhere close.

As the graph below illustrates, Townend’s own style is more in line with the ‘average’ jockey – albeit with one big difference: a much higher percentage of the horses he rides run to form (than the average).

Townend is the obvious candidate to step directly into Walsh’s riding boots, as he did at Punchestown last week, but the number of horses under Mullins’ care may mean adding to a roster of jockeys that also includes family members Danny, David and Patrick. All have ridden over 40 winners this season, but each also has their own separate part to play in the Closutton operation, and it would be no great surprise to see a more senior jockey drafted in to assist Townend over the next 12 months.

Though they know each other well from their Gigginstown connection, it’s perhaps unlikely that Davy Russell would make the move, and while Robbie Power rode a high-profile winner for the yard in the form of Chacun Pour Soi at Punchestown, his link with Jessica Harrington, Colin Tizzard and the Potts horses makes him an unlikely candidate. Similarly, Mark Walsh has a good thing going as retained jockey to J.P. McManus, primarily in Ireland but with a growing influence on the big rides at the major UK meetings.

In truth, it wouldn’t be the biggest surprise if – like Walsh back in 2013 – one of the senior Irish jockeys currently riding in England quietly threw their hat into the ring. The likes of Barry Geraghty, Brian Hughes, Aidan Coleman and Paddy Brennan would all fit the bill, as would former Ditcheat employee Daryl Jacob. After all, who wouldn’t want to join a yard that saddled 204 winners in Ireland alone during the latest season?