Top jockey Ruby Walsh reveals his Festival thoughts

7 March 2014

Seven times leading Festival jockey, Ruby Walsh, reveals his Cheltenham Festival thoughts, the pressures and expectations surrounding the meeting, passes comment on giving away the ride on Big Bucks and why Kauto Star was as close to perfect as he has ever ridden.. 

The following transcript is available free for reproduction in full or in part, and will run as a four-part feature on Channel 4 Racing: Cheltenham Festival from March 11th – 14th.

 

The first day of the festival was called Ruby Tuesday last year after the day that you had, what was that like?

Yes it was a brilliant day, you go to Cheltenham with a lot of hope and a lot of expectation, plenty of pressure and you know, for the first day just to go like that – you can win the first, it can take a lot of pressure off.

 

You could almost see that in your face when you came back in from winning on the horse.

Yeah, you know when I was younger you go to Cheltenham happy you will ride a winner, and then you get older and you’re thinking I want to ride a winner.  But now I’ve been so lucky to ride a lot of winners there, that you’re expected to ride winners and from when you turn up there, there’s a lot of expectation on you, high profile rides.  I love the pressure of it and I love the atmosphere but there is that expectation that you’re supposed to perform and deliver and I guess when you get that burden off your shoulders so early in the week it’s great.

 

Is it a relief?

It is a relief but there’s nothing like riding a winner at Cheltenham.  You know it’s different, it’s great but it’s different - a different atmosphere, a difference noise level.  I would love to be a soccer player doing it every week but you’re not, and to get your chance to ride in front of a crowd that big, it’s a buzz.

 

This year is a different ball game. You walked away from what looked like the perfect scenario, riding for the Champion trainer in the UK and the Champion Trainer in Ireland, how tough a decision was that?

A huge decision, you know I had two wonderful years riding for Paul Nicholls and combined with riding with Willie Mullins but there was plenty of pressure involved in that.  Plenty of juggling, making decisions and a lot of decisions you had to make were at times keeping the peace, were the correct political calls but you had to make calls at times that were going to keep the balance right as well.  And I had great support when I was doing it but you know, you get older, family comes along, all of a sudden juggling two jobs and trying to juggle a family, I couldn’t quite strike the right balance.  Something was going to have to give and I’ve always lived in Ireland, I’ve always loved being in Ireland and then I had ten great years at Paul Nicholls and the timing seemed right.  Look it wasn’t just as simple as that, there were plenty of nights I sat here with Jilly and discussed it and how I was going to do it, putting all your eggs in one basket.  What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong? But I felt the need for a chance and I had a chat with Paul. We discussed it and thankfully we ended on as good a terms as we stated and that was something I really wanted.  But you’re then putting all your eggs into one basket but it’s definitely enabled me to strike a better work, home balance.  I love it.

 

Do you feel that you’ve got a point to prove?
No, I never started out with a point to prove.  I started out to ride winners. I always found myself to be lucky to be able to earn a living out of riding horses.  I never started out to get an ego. I never started out to have good things written about me in the paper to get interviews like this. I set out to ride horses and ride winners and the only point I wanted to prove was to myself.  And, I won all the good races, a lot of the big races that I wanted to win. I don’t have a point to prove but I love doing it and I want to keep doing it.  I enjoy it.

 

Wednesday is probably a day that maybe sticks in your memory more because it’s the day when you rode your first winner at Cheltenham Festival

Yes, 1998 Alexander Banquet and I suppose it was the first day that I probably understood Willie a little bit.  I mean, the year before Richard Dunwoody had ridden Florida pearl in the bumper and he was available and could have ridden Alexander Banquet too.  But Willie was good enough to leave me on him.  I had ridden a lot of the good bumper horses that year in Ireland and Joe Mac was the horse I fancied, I had ridden them all basically.  Then, Alexander Banquet ran through the wings at the last hurdle and stuck his head down – it’s like 16 years ago but it feels like yesterday.  The memories of it, yeah, I guess it was something I didn’t think was going to happen, I hoped it would happen, and to realise that it was happening was just brilliant.

 

But for you now to have ridden and experienced that feeling more than 30 times, it’s greedy isn’t it?

Yeah it is but I don’t know, there’s still a bit of greed in most sports people who’ve had any bit of success, are we all greedy?  AP’s is as greedy as hell.  Somewhere in there there has to be that little bit of selfishness that makes you want more, makes you push yourself that bit harder. Yeah, I’m a bit greedy.

 

Isn’t it a different ball game on the Wednesday come to Tuesday?

It is.  You start out the shoot in the Sun Alliance Neptune Investment Novices Hurdle, that’s not so bad but to come out of there for the Coral Cup, thirty of you, cross the middle, heading to that bend towards the straight, that’s like playing Russian roulette.  It’s just helter-skelter, there’s no light, horses either side of you are literally touching off you – that’s not one for the faint hearted, and I don’t think it was anyway.  The first five or six furlongs in the Coral Cup are as tight and as rough as it gets.  The bumper has another aspect to it.  You get to the start of the bumper and you look around, you can rule out three or four of the top eight in the betting because the whole occasion just got to them – crowd, the parade ring, cantering up in front of the stands, turn around to canter back down past the crowd.  Three of them have left the race; have ran a race before we get to the start.  That is what Cheltenham is. It’s a test of horse and jockey, physically and mentally and the amount of horses that mentally can’t cope with it is, like younger horses, novice horses, bumper horses, that just boiled over – the whole occasion gets to them.  But that’s Cheltenham, that’s racing, that’s the good horses standing apart from the ordinary ones because they can cope with that.

 

When you’ve got decisions to make, horses to ride, especially now with Willie being so dominant in the novices, do you sometimes when making your decision factor in all that – how will the horse cope with those conditions?

You do yeah but you also have to factor in the opposition. What’s the ground’s going to be like and how’s the horse going to cope with said race,  There’s no point in riding a stayer in the RSA or Neptune Investment Novices Hurdle if there’s no pace.  It’s a hard place to make the running unless you’re riding a natural front runner like Champagne Fever.  Celestial Halo naturally front runs but certain horses don’t.  They like to be behind so all of a sudden you think that this is a great novice who likes to get a lead but is not that quick, there’s no pace.  You look down through the race, there’s no pace, you put an ’x’ near him, you more on to another one.  There are so many different things to factor into it.  There’s not just your own horse, you hope he gets there healthy and well, other horses Willie has – they’re all healthy on Sunday morning and then you start factoring in these other decisions into it.  Then you try to come up with the right one.  For me the biggest part about that is you have to be prepared to be wrong.  You’re not always going to ride the right one, but you have to be prepared you’re going to be wrong. So you have to be prepared to be wrong and then ride the one you want to ride.  There’s no point in riding him but wishing you were riding that one.  Make your decision but there are days that you are going to be wrong cos you are, you’re human.  You’re going to be wrong so be prepared to be wrong, get over it and pick one.

 

How does that go when you get it wrong?

You move on, you got it wrong.  Before you start there’s a chance you’re going to be.  So if you can’t accept  that, if you’re going out thinking I never get this wrong, I’m always going to pick the right one and then when you pick the wrong one you start blaming someone else you’re not going anywhere.

 

Thursday, I suppose we should call it Big Bucks day!
Big Bucks was great.  Big Bucks from the first year when he beat Punchestown was like setting your watch no matter what was happening, he was to me, that far ahead of the opposition.  That reliable you’re going there thinking I’ve Quevega and something goes wrong, I have Big Bucks and then you have others fitting in.  But you just had Big Bucks which was so reliable.  He was such a good horse to ride.  He wasn’t an extravagant jumper, he pops away, and he goes a fraction to his left.  There’s very little chance of him stepping, if anything he’s going to gallop on and bring the hurdle with him but he’s not going to fall doing that.  He wasn’t slow, he stayed.  Alright he didn’t kill himself in front but he always had a bit left and there was great days on him.  He was a great horse to ride.

 

When you won the last one on him, Paul was having a bad week and the relief on your face when he crossed the line – it meant so much?

Yeah, like I said, that’s the expectation.  I feel it, Willie Mullins feels it, Tony McCoy feels it, Paul Nicholls feels it, Barry Geraghty, Nicky Henderson.  There are eight to ten people in racing that are expected to win at Cheltenham.  Everybody else wants to win, that’s a great position to be in but there is that expectation.  For a yard as big as Paul Nicholls’ and you turn up at Cheltenham and they’re misfiring, alright they’ve been coughing a few weeks before but people are still thinking “why are you not having winners?!”  What are you doing wrong? It’s not that the horses aren’t well, it’s what are you doing wrong, it’s as simple as that.  And you know, Big Bucks turned up and yeah he was wanted, he delivered.  But that’s the kind of horse he was. I guess when your back was to the wall and you needed something to get you out of it, Big Bucks did.

 

What happens Thursday? World Hurdle day, Annie Power is not in the World Hurdle – will you want to be on Big Bucks?

Of course I would, who wouldn’t!  I understand and understood making the decision. I gave that ride away and I went and gave away the ride on Silviniaco Conti, and Big Bucks if he came back, Alferof and countless others but I had to make a decision not to further my career, to extend my career and get as much as I could out of it for as long as I can out of it.  Willie has great horses.  I knew I was giving away riding Big Bucks.  It wasn’t a decision I made lightly.  Would I like to be riding him?  I would love to be riding him but I’m not, it’s as simple as that.

 

So you wouldn’t turn down the ride if it was offered?

No, I couldn’t see how anyone could.

 

So, Daryl Jacob not wanting the pressure of the ride – where did you see that?

I didn’t see it.  I was a bit surprised.  It’s opinion, a difference of opinion.  I would have wanted to ride him.  Hell, I would have nearly have led him up if it meant riding him.  But I’m me and Daryl is Daryl. 

Cleeve Hurdle was that the real Big Bucks?

He’s better than that; I don’t think the real Big Bucks whatever would be beaten by Knockara Beau.  Look I wasn’t there on the day.  Speaking to Barry and AP the following day at Leopardstown, they both said it was as testing as they had ever ridden at Cheltenham.  He just got tired as he hadn’t run ran in fourteen months and fitness took its toll. If you were taking one out of it in March on drier ground with that big atmosphere, Big Bucks knows how to win.

 

What was it like coming back on him, having won the fourth World Hurdle?

It was wonderful.  I guess he was almost beyond backable really – but he wasn’t that short – if you were brave enough and had enough to have on him, he was nearly seven in the banks at the time and he got a wonderful reception but he was entitled to it.  Four World Hurdles is fair going. It’s a three mile race, a tough slog – he was entitled.

 

Is he a people’s horse?

I don’t know. What’s a people’s horse?  He is and he isn’t – he’s Andy Stewart’s.

 

Gold Cup Day – you’re lucky to have won twice on Kauto Star and also ride the year he came back, was it more special?

Yes, definitely was I guess.  First year was amazing – six from six that season and won the big bonus that Betfair had put on.  He came back the following year and I don’t know, there was days the following year he was never quite right. He had won well enough at Ascot but Denman pulverised him absolutely from half way, I couldn’t keep up with him.  You know, it was an unbelievable performance from Denman. But to come back the next year, Kauto’s a very special horse to me. He was five King George, two Gold Cups and a Tingle Creek – you (Mick) won a Tingle Creek on him.  He was an amazing horse and to see him come back, a bit like Hurricane Fly, they said it couldn’t be done and back he came, stuck his head out, ground out to win. 

Look, it was disappointing days after that, he was third in the Gold Cup, fell in one, pulled up in one but on that day in Cheltenham, when he regained the Gold Cup, yeah I thought he was King.

 

He thought he was King when he came back!

I hope he did.  Look, he was a great horse. Alright, he took the odd chance and kicked the odd fence out of the ground but there’s no such thing as perfect but he was damn near close to it.

 

Seven times Festival leading jockey, weren’t you?

Yes, I think so.  Jeez you should know that answer shouldn’t you.  Look, I’ve been very lucky.  To ride winners at Cheltenham you need to be riding the best horses – it’s pretty much as simple as that. And I’ve had two very good jobs, now I have one great job but I always had two very, very good jobs – you go there with lots of chances.  The more mud you throw the better chance you have of something sticking and I’ve ridden some wonderful horses there, some great horses.

 

Gold Cup this year – how do you see it and what would you like to ride?

If it’s a dry day, I think Bob Worth wins all day, every day.  He quickened up on decent-ish ground at Leopardstown from the back at the last.  I rode Rubi Ball and David Casey on First Lieutenant. We hadn’t gone a great gallop; we dictate it along up front to suit ourselves.  I quickened away from the second last, David came with me, we rounded the bend and quickened for the last and all of a sudden Bobs Worth, supposed to be the slow one, quickened again.  He lengthens his stride from the back of the last.  I was quite taken with him that day. It was the first time and even though he’s a Gold Cup winner, Sun Alliance winner, Albert Bartlett winner, it was the day I thought wow, he’s a good horse.