Ruby Walsh is reckoned a long odds-on favourite to secure a tenth jockeys title when the season winds up at Punchestown in early May.
A tenth championship will put Walsh equal with Frank Berry, although Berry shared three of his awards between 1975 and 1987.
Walsh is currently level with Charlie Swan on nine titles and goes into the remaining seven weeks of the season tied for second with Paul Townend on 63 winners.
Both men are five behind the leader Mark Walsh who is on the injury sidelines with a broken arm and won’t know for another three weeks if he will be able to return in time for the Punchestown festival.
Although Townend, champion himself in 2011, is still right in contention, the RaceBets firm reckon he faces a colossal task to beat Walsh who will have the pick of Willie Mullins’s hugely powerful string at both the Fairyhouse and Punchestown festivals.
Next best
RaceBets make Walsh a 1-7 favourite to win out, with Townend a 6-1 next best and Walsh, despite still holding a lead he has had for most of the season, the outsider at 12-1.
“From my calculations there are 20 race meetings left, excluding the hunter chase and bumper card at Cork on Easter Monday, and a maximum of 115 races which are open to them from now on,” explained spokesman, Joseph Burke.
“I think you could easily see Ruby win 20 or 25 of them, given the strength of the Willie Mullins stable. And that’s a lot for the other to cope with.”
The potential pitfalls for jump jockeys were emphasised last weekend however with Barry Geraghty breaking his shin in a fall at Downpatrick on Sunday, just a day after Davy Russell broke an arm at Gowran Park.
Both former champion jockeys hope to return in time for Punchestown which runs from April 28th to May 2nd and brings the curtain down on the Irish National Hunt season.
Walsh has the best record among current jockeys in the Boylesports Irish Grand National having won on both Commanche Court (2000) and Numbersixvalverde (2005.) The upcoming €275,000 Easter Monday highlight could see him team up with Mullins in an attempt to give the champion trainer a first win in Ireland’s most coveted steeplechase.
Away We Go’s second to Liberty Counsel two years ago is the nearest the all-conquering his Mullins has come to winning the Irish National, a race his father Paddy famously won on four occasions, the last of them Luska in 1981.
Rich Ricci’s Dogora and Perfect Gentleman, who races in the colours of Mullins’s wife, Jackie, are his two entries this time with the latter rated a 20-1 in some ante-post lists after a decent showing in the four mile National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham.
Felix Yonger looks set to be the Mullins-Walsh representative in this Saturday’s Grade Two feature at Navan, the Webster Cup, which has a dozen entries left in it, including the former Powers Gold Cup hero, Flemenstar, after the latest declaration stage.
Tendon problem
Flemenstar hasn’t been seen since November of 2013 when winning the Fortria Chase on his first start for Tony Martin after being switched from former trainer Peter Casey.
After that Fortria win a tendon problem was discovered but the horse has been brought back and is among a strong looking entry for the two and a half mile event.
“He’s in good form at home. He’s back with Tony and we’re looking forward to his first race back,” said Flemenstar’s owner Stephen Curran. “We’re hoping to get him ready for Punchestown but Saturday will tell us a lot and we take it one day at a time. Whatever he does at the weekend, he’ll improve on it.”
Another Tony Martin horse, Savello, is among a strong Gigginstown Stud entry but Mullins relies solely on Felix Yonger who returned to action with a hurdles win at Leopardstown a week before Cheltenham.
Donald McCain has left in the cross-channel entry, Desert Cry.
A total of 15 horses are left in Limerick’s Grade Two feature, the Hugh McMahon Memorial Chase, over three miles, with seven from Gigginstown Stud that include the RSA third Wounded Warrior and Empire Of Dirt who is as low as 12-1 for the Irish Grand National.
