Ruby Walsh, who was due to ride Sir Des Champs for Willie Mullins in the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday, will miss the race after suffering a hairline fracture to a wrist in a fall from Blood Cotil in the Topham Chase here on Friday. Nina Carberry, the outstanding female jockey of her generation, will come in for the ride on the 22-1 chance, who was a winner at the Cheltenham Festival in 2011 and 2012.
Walsh was stood down for the day after the fall, his second in two races after an unexpected departure from Vautour, the 1-5 favourite, in the Grade One Melling Chase earlier on the card.
The initial signs were promising that he would pass the doctor at the track on Saturday morning but an X-ray revealed a fracture which will force him to watch from the sidelines.
Walsh was also due to ride Douvan, the brilliant winner of the Arkle Trophy at Cheltenham last month, in the Maghull Novice Chase on the same card, and Yorkhill, who took the Neptune Investment Novice Hurdle three weeks ago, in the Mersey Novice Hurdle. Both horses, who will be odds-on to make a significant contribution to Mullins’s challenge for the British trainers’ title, will now be ridden by Paul Townend.
Carberry, meanwhile, suddenly has a realistic chance to become the first female jockey to win the Grand National. She had expected to watch the race on television having been booked to ride a reserve who did not get into the final field. Now she will be aboard a horse whose best form would make him a serious contender.
Mullins took a lead of just over £54,000 in the race for the British trainers’ championship during racing here on Friday, but the fall of Vautour brought a sudden halt to his apparently relentless progress towards the title.
In the favourite’s absence the Tom George-trained God’s Own and Paddy Brennan took the £112,000 first prize, a purse that most punters and bookies had assumed would take Mullins into a clear lead over Paul Nicholls, the champion trainer in nine of the last 10 seasons.
Vautour cleared the first eight fences with his familiar slick precision but he put in an extra half-stride at the ninth and fell after clipping the top of the fence.
God’s Own then held the challenge of Al Ferof in the closing stages to win by two and three quarter lengths, giving Brennan his second Grade One win at the meeting after Cue Card’s victory in Thursday’s Betfred Bowl.
