Mark Walsh is a dead man walking - surely he deserved far better treatment than this from Team McManus
Jockey's record of 37 Grade 1 wins in the green and gold trumps those of Tony McCoy, Barry Geraghty and Charlie Swan
Richard Forristal
Mark Walsh has never been one to speak his mind publicly but he'd be entitled to feel hard done by this week after in effect being given his marching orders by JP McManus.
We shouldn't mistake his reticence for timidity. Walsh is a proud and ambitious sportsman, so he will be seething. Yes, it seems he will remain in his role as the de facto number one in Ireland until the end of term, but for the next four months the most successful Grade 1 jockey ever associated with McManus must endure the ignominy of knowing he is no longer wanted. He is a lame duck president, which does him a great injustice after all his years of service.
Sure, you could look at his career and say he wouldn't have enjoyed anything like it but for McManus, which is absolutely true. However, through it all he has been carefully moulded by those around him, and he has very much been Frank Berry's protege.
From Walsh's initial link with Christy Roche nearly 25 years ago, through to his partnership with Francis Flood and then his evolution into a trusted lieutenant under Tony McCoy and Barry Geraghty, before his unstinting loyalty was rewarded with the lion's share of the Irish rides during the latter's final years, Berry's fingerprints and quiet counsel are all over his career.
So in that respect, while he wouldn't have ever scaled the same heights without Team McManus, it's also true that he was taken under their wing from a very early stage. Institutionalised might be too strong a word but the point is there was never any value in his exploring other opportunities. As such, in all the hullabaloo over Harry Cobden's appointment, it feels as though we have been talking about the whole thing as if Walsh isn't even in the room. He is still here and his record is imperious.
The suspicion is that circumstances overtook events, in the sense that the approach to Cobden leaked out of the usually tight McManus camp, and the jungle drums kept getting louder. With the prospect of Cobden riding Jonbon at the weekend lingering in the background, maybe a decision was made to try to get ahead of the story, but in doing so Walsh has been lamentably undermined.
It's a sharp contrast to when he gravitated towards the position he is now in, when Geraghty was ultimately afforded the respect to step aside in his own time despite the rumour mill whirring for two years.
Instead, Walsh has been rendered a dead man walking, deemed good enough to tide the team over until May but not beyond that. It's an invidious position, one for which there is no precedent that comes to mind. Usually you are either in or out, so it has been poorly managed. That's the point here.
People have referenced defeats for Majborough and Fact To File this year, but Majborough isn't the sort of horse you could judge anyone on. His jumping is poor and he has arguably been running over the wrong trip as well.
There seems to be a theory that Walsh's ride on Fact To File in the King George lacked conviction, but we aren't privy to the orders he gets on any of these rides, and plenty of the McManus horses have not been right.
Even the most ardent Willie Mullins advocate would admit that many of the Closutton horses have been misfiring, and Gavin Cromwell's season hasn't got off the ground at all. Inothewayurthinkin hasn't risen a gallop in two runs and Walsh's harshest critics could not blame him for that. Besides, he will be riding these horses for the rest of the season anyway.
Remember, when they were good enough at Cheltenham in March, when the expectation was greatest and the margin for error negligible, Walsh delivered. Invariably that's what he did. He was superb on both Fact To File in the Ryanair and on the supplemented Inothewayurthinkin in the Gold Cup, executing one of the most audacious giant-killing feats of modern times in thwarting Galopin Des Champs' historic bid for three in a row.
He ended up snaring four wins at Cheltenham and was only beaten to the riders' award on countback, so to now find himself in the situation he is feels harsh.
This is a guy who has been the ultimate team player, a trait that is particularly valued in the McManus model when the big picture can require short-term objectives to be deprioritised. He has been the most committed soldier, equally comfortable chiselling out the unglamorous day-to-day stuff as when required to deliver under the most intense pressure. He epitomised the sort of discretion McManus cherishes, so the ruthlessly public nature of his demotion is a surprise.
Walsh's record of 37 Grade 1 wins in the green and gold silks trumps those of McCoy, Geraghty and Charlie Swan, and 11 of his 14 Cheltenham Festival winners were for his boss. That is testament to his ability, but also to his capacity to thrive despite the unimaginable levels of expectation that come with the gig. He might be turning 40 but, as McCoy, Geraghty, Ruby Walsh, Davy Russell and Richard Johnson proved, that's not relevant if they still fancy it; and we have no reason to believe Walsh doesn't.
He has won a Champion Hurdle, a Gold Cup, a Ryanair and a Stayers' Hurdle for McManus, as well as a raft of other marquee races and lucrative handicaps, in which there is simply none better at doing just enough.
Of course, Cobden is a fantastic rider. McManus's ambition to sign him up is his prerogative and completely understandable. In this space last April I filled a page by lauding his old-fashioned flair and how we would all love to see him ply his trade on a suitably big stage more often. That is now going to happen and few would doubt the marquee signing will live up to expectations.
But the unassuming man he is replacing, who always let the horses do the talking, exceeded every expectation we ever had of him. Put simply, he deserved better than this for a swansong.
