Jumping his way to success

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Ruby: The AutobiographyBy Ruby Walsh with Malachy Clerkin, Orion, 292pp. £18.99

RUBY WALSH is nursing a broken leg. It happened the way these things do in National Hunt racing: Corrick Bridge, the horse he was riding in a race at Down Royal, came a cropper. An hour earlier Walsh piloted Kauto Star, one of the game’s all-time greats, to victory in the track’s premier jumps race, before following up half an hour later on an emerging talent called the Nightingale.

Cliches about ups and downs fit no other sport so easily, but they do no justice to its reality. Walsh points out that you can’t make your living by riding half-ton horses around at 50km/h and not get injured. Jockeys spend their careers being followed by ambulances. Walsh has suffered concussions, fractures, dislocations and crushed vertebrae, and lost his spleen.

It’s part of the pay-off for a career that has seen him win two Grand Nationals: on Papillion in 2000, for his trainer father, Ted, and on Hedgehunter in 2005, for his mentor, Willie Mullins. He has ridden more Cheltenham Festival winners than any other jockey in history; this year he passed Pat Taaffe’s record of 25 and ran his own total up to 27. He’s won two Gold Cups at that festival on Kauto Star. He’s won two Punchestown Gold Cups and been leading rider at the Irish festival several times, as well as winning eight jockeys’ championships in this country.

Those achievements would fill several careers at the top. And it’s not as if his opposition are mugs. His friend and rival AP McCoy, who rode this year’s Aintree winner, Don’t Push It, can’t get out of bed without breaking records; another, Barry Geraghty, has a full trophy cabinet that includes Gold Cups and Grand Nationals.

Given his background it’s natural that he became a jockey. His father was a leading amateur rider and, as well as now being a successful trainer, is RTÉ’s resident racing pundit. Walsh and his siblings were riding from the time they could walk and helping out in their father’s training yard from the time they could pick up a brush.

The book charts his career from that point, but it is not just a bland list of achievements. Walsh is direct and articulate in person, and he and his co-writer, Malachy Clerkin, have ensured that trait comes through. One of the book’s best aspects is his descriptions of races and his tactical approach to riding, which he argues is much more a test of brains than of brawn. The accounts offer an insight into this thinking while giving a real feel for the action as it unfolds.

He doesn’t just stick to the good days. There are plenty of times when it went wrong, and he’s not afraid to include his view of incidents such as his decision, early in the horse’s career, to remount Kauto Star and complete a race after a fall, sparking a controversy that ultimately resulted in the practice being banned.

He clearly thinks racing’s authorities could have a better attitude to jockeys, and not without justification. When news broke, in 2003, that their colleague Kieran Kelly had died as a result of injuries sustained in a race in Kilbeggan, the stewards, racing’s regulators, reacted churlishly to say the least after he and his fellow riders asked for the remaining races at a meeting at Gowran to be called off as a mark of respect.

And there’s the role Kauto Star has played in Walsh’s career. He acknowledges that all top jockeys need a superstar: Pat Taaffe had Arkle; Walsh has Kauto. With luck they’ll resume their partnership after he returns to action, in January. For the many fans who can’t wait until then, this book is a pretty good substitute.

Barry O'Halloran is an Irish Timesjournalist