Ruby Walsh is discussing his career priorities and asking a simple question. "Who was champion jockey before Charlie Swan?"

Erm, let's think.

"See, not so easy. I bet six or seven out of every 10 racing people wouldn't know. But name them a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and they'll all know who rode it," he says.

In case you've forgotten who was the champion jockey last season, it was Ruby Walsh. A teenage champion. Think of Richard Dunwoody not winning his first professional race until he was 20 and Walsh emerges as something of a prodigy.

Over 200 winners since he began race riding. Champion amateur in 1998, champion professional this year. Proof that day in, day out, Walsh was tops. Colossal day-today effort vindicated. But it's the prestige races that illuminate the years.

"It was great to win the championship but I would almost swap it for a Gold Cup. People remember the Gold Cups," he says in a slight drawl that contrasts with the machine gun stacatto of his father, the television pundit and trainer Ted Walsh.

So consider big, valuable races and then consider Walsh's almost desperate frustration. Trainer Willie Mullins has: "The guy is just so focused."

Then consider Walsh's view this morning. A cast on his right leg and a visit to his surgeon in the offing. He is hoping to be told that the last bit of cast can be removed and he will be allowed to ride at the huge Leopardstown Christmas meeting in six days time. A lot is riding on that tender shin bone.

The same bone has been Walsh's sole concern since October 10th, and what should have been a diverting and interesting trip to the Czech Republic. Risk Of Thunder was running in the famously gruelling Velka Pardubice. Walsh went too.

Prague was cool, the beer cheap and the girls gorgeous. Pardubice, two hours away, was a bit flat and featureless but its racecourse is anything but. Something to look forward to. Before Risk Of Thunder, Walsh warmed up on another Enda Bolger horse called Shannon Fountain in an £8,000 cross country race.

"I was swinging along, clung to the rail, with two Czech riders right behind me. I was right on the white plastic running rail, shaving it, but then I saw the connections on two parts of the rail coming up had not been closed.

"There was a gap and then the rail started again. I'd nowhere to go and we met the start of the rail straight on. I got a kick from a horse coming after me but it was the rail incident that broke my shin. As soon as I stood up I knew straightaway I was in trouble. I just walked, well crawled, a couple of yards off the track," Walsh remembers.

It's said in that matter-of-fact tone that all jump jockeys seem to adopt when discussing injuries that would provoke endless hours in therapy for mere landlubbers like us. Nevertheless the immediate emotion was pain. Walsh is full of praise for the Czech medical services.

"They could not have been better. People were talking afterwards about being in Eastern Europe but they checked me for everything, scanned for internal injuries, and when I came back my surgeon said the cast was perfect," he says.

The next emotion was frustration. For a fit, active and driven young man, having an encased leg is not a recipe for peace of mind. On October 10th, Walsh's total of winners for the new season was 17 and he was on target to retain the championship. Now another new boy, Barry Geraghty, has scorched clear in the table with almost 50 winners.

"Ah, stop," Walsh replies when the frustration question is put to him. "Florida Pearl in the North, Alexander Banquet in novice races, Rince Ri for my Dad. Watching them has been terrible."

All of which makes the latest doctor's appointment so important to him. Just over two months to cure a broken leg may sound absurd to most, but jockeys really are a different breed. All Walsh really wants for Christmas is to throw that right leg across a few hundredweight of thoroughbred racehorse and jump fences at 30 m.p.h. with the possibility of coming off at the same speed all too real.

"Leopardstown at Christmas may not be the be all and end all but so many of the good horses run there. Horses like Alexander Banquet, who has probably been the luckiest horse for me after winning the bumper at Cheltenham and those good novice hurdles last year," he says.

Those three days at Cheltenham in March do now seem to be the be all and end all of the jumps season, but even Istabraq, the horse who epitomises that theory most, will appear next week. Missing out at Christmas could reverberate for the rest of the season. And there is the not insignificant question of immediate prizemoney.

The Willie Mullins-trained Micko's Dream is currently joint favourite for the £125,000 Paddy Power Chase next Monday. The percentage of the winning prizemoney is not be sneezed at.

"It's a huge pot but it would be nice to say that you have won the race itself. The 10 per cent is one thing, prestige is another," decides Walsh.

It's that big-race fascination again. The thousands who will go racing this Christmas may not have the same desire, but any big race with the champion on the sidelines will be the poorer. Here's hoping.

Oh, and if you're still wondering who was the champion jump jockey before the reign of Charlie Swan? It was Tommy Carmody in 1988.