Ruby Walsh at risk of missing Cheltenham Festival after Punchestown fall

Ruby Walsh, the top jockey at the Cheltenham Festival in 11 of the last 14 seasons, faces weeks and probably months on the sidelines after suffering a broken leg in a fall at Punchestown on Saturday. Walsh had already fallen from two of his first three rides on the card when Let’s Dance, the odds-on favourite in a mares’ hurdle, fell at the fourth-last flight. The jockey received treatment on the track before being taken to Naas hospital for x-rays.

He later told Racing UK that he had “suffered a fracture of my right tibia”, adding: “I’m going to Tallaght Hospital [in Dublin] now to see a specialist, and I’ll know a lot more tomorrow.”

Walsh also appeared to receive a kick to the head from Let’s Dance as they parted company. “He got a nasty kick off his own horse when he was trying to get up,” Dr Adrian McGoldrick, the Irish Turf Club’s chief medical officer, said on Saturday. “As a matter of routine, he will be given a CT scan of that area.”

Walsh was due to partner Faugheen, the 2015 Champion Hurdle winner, in the Grade One Morgiana Hurdle at Punchestown on Sunday, the nine-year-old’s first start since January 2016. Paul Townend, Walsh’s No2 at the Willie Mullins yard, will switch from Vroum Vroum Mag, his original booking for the race, to ride Faugheen.

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Faugheen is just one of a host of leading names from the Mullins stable that will need a new rider as the season unfolds, while the 38-year-old Walsh appears to face a race to be fit for the Festival, which opens on 13 March.

The Professional Jockeys’ Association estimates that the average time for a return to race-riding after fracturing a tibia is 130 days – which would keep Walsh on the sidelines until 28 March.

Tony McCoy, a close friend and former rival of Walsh and now a pundit for ITV Racing, said on Saturday evening he had exchanged a series of texts with the injured jockey. “He’s devastated,” McCoy said. “He’s had a few bad falls in the past. He’s the best jockey I’ve ever seen and tougher than anyone I’ve ever seen.

“He’s very low at the moment, but in a few days and a few weeks, he’ll be trying to get himself back. He’ll get through it. It’s a big loss to National Hunt racing to see him not riding and Willie Mullins is going to miss him, but he’ll be back.”

Rain fell throughout the second afternoon of the November meeting at Cheltenham, and every millimetre improved the chance of Splash Of Ginge in the card’s main event, the BetVictor Gold Cup.

Nigel Twiston-Davies’s nine-year-old, whose stable companion Foxtail Hill was one of the market leaders at 9-1, splashed through the mud to hold Starchitect at bay by a neck at odds of 25-1, having been available at 50-1 earlier in the day, and now has a second big-race success at long odds to add to his 33-1 success in the Betfair Hurdle in 2014.

“The soft ground is the key to him,” Twiston-Davies said, as the “Ginge Army”, led by the horse’s owner John Nield, celebrated his success in a raucous winner’s enclosure. “He’d lost his way a little bit, and it’s great to give a chance to Tom Bellamy [the winner’s jockey] who’s not having a great time. Foxtail couldn’t cope with the heavy ground, but he just bombed up to them, no trouble at all,” the trainer said.

“Being a Liverpudlian, it’s John’s ambition to win the Grand National, and he’s had a bet to win a million quid if he can win it, but we’d have to get him into the race into the race with enough of a handicap mark. He probably will, now.”

Bellamy’s first thought was for Ryan Hatch, Splash Of Ginge’s partner for much of his career, who is still recovering from injuries sustained in a fall at Cheltenham last December.

“The person sitting here today should be Ryan Hatch,” Bellamy said. “He is my best friend and I live with him. I am obviously gutted for him, but at the same time, I know he will be delighted for me.

“It’s now two wins from three rides for Nigel. It’s a big ride to get, le alone a big winner, so I’m very grateful. I lost my claim last year and it’s been very quiet since, so hopefully that might get the ball rolling a little bit now.”

Apple’s Shakira, a full sister to the excellent Apple’s Jade, is the new favourite for the Triumph Hurdle after an emphatic success in the card’s opening race, and while there are many juvenile hurdlers still waiting to make their debut over timber, it will take a very good one to shift Apple’s Shakira from the top of the market.

Gumball, a dominating winner of his first two starts over hurdles, looked like a fair opponent for Nicky Henderson’s filly on paper, but he did not jump fluently in the first half of the race and was quickly left behind when Barry Geraghty opened up on Apple’s Shakira on the turn for home. She crossed the line 17 lengths clear of Gumball and is now top-priced at 5-1 for the Triumph on 16 March.

Geraghty took the same race last year aboard the subsequent Triumph winner, Defi Du Seuil, and while Apple’s Shakira could also run in the mares’ novice hurdle at the Festival, the Triumph already appears an obvious target.

“She was green through the middle part of the race and jumped a bit big, but she kept learning as she went,” Geraghty said. “She was as much learning as responding, the penny only really dropped halfway through the race.

“She has more to learn than Defi Du Seuil, he knew his job very well. This girl has a lot of talent, but doesn’t quite know her job yet.”

Bryony Frost steered home a valuable winner for the second weekend running as Paul Nicholls’s Black Corton, the outsider of three runners, ground out victory in the card’s novice chase. Frost took the Badger Ales Trophy last Saturday on Present Man, and has now won all five of her starts on Black Corton.

Frost sent Black Corton into the lead on the turn for home, and while Twiston-Davies’s runner Ballyoptic closed on the run to the line, Black Corton held him at bay by four lengths.

Greg Wood’s tips for Sunday

CHELTENHAM

1.15 Black Ivory 1.50 Capitaine (nb) 2.25 Fox Norton 3.00 Flying Tiger (nap) 3.30 Dame De Compagnie 4.00 Crooks Peak

FONTWELL PARK

12.20 Dahills Hill 12.55 Thounder 1.30 Robin Of Locksley 2.05 Shelford 2.40 Billbushay 3.15 Soulsaver 3.50 Spiritofchartwell