'If you're only riding your own horse in a race, you're asleep' - Walsh, Geraghty and Russell together for one night only
The winners of 6,276 races, five Gold Cups, eight Champion Hurdles, eight Champion Chases, five Grand Nationals and 17 jockeys' championships are wrapped around a table in the Boars Head pub on Capel Street in Dublin's city centre. Just the 127 Cheltenham Festival wins between them.
Davy Russell is starving. He orders a chicken Caesar salad with a side of chips and wolfs it down in less time than it took Michael O'Leary to sack him. Ruby Walsh doesn't eat anything, he has stuck rigidly to the two meals a day diet that served him so well during his riding days, while Barry Geraghty sips away at a creamy pint of Guinness.
"Some contradiction that," Walsh scoffs over at Russell. "A healthy salad with a big bowl of chips!"
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Published on inThe Big Read
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- 'People love having horses with Willy rather than a miserable git like me'
- 'I'm not here to tell people how to train but if you hide something from me, I'm gone, I'm done - and you won't see me again'
- 'The lads often give out to me for saying what I say - but if I didn't say what I thought I wouldn't be being true to myself'
- 'I'm not retiring just yet. It'll come to me, I'm sure, but I hate idleness - I haven't had an idle moment in 60 years'
- 'The next target has to be number one spot. It's a massive dream and it's going to be hard, but you have to keep aiming high'