RACING GRAND NATIONAL NEWS:RUBY WALSH is set to try and win Saturday week's John Smith's Aintree Grand National for a third time on board the Willie Mullins trained ante-post favourite The Midnight Club.
Paul Nicholls’ confirmation yesterday that Harry Skelton will be on board Niche Market in Liverpool left the way open for Walsh to team up with The Midnight Club who heads the market for the world’s most famous steeplechase at odds of as low as 8 to 1.
“Ruby rang me today to say he will ride The Midnight Club,” Mullins said yesterday. “The Midnight Club is in good form. He worked twice during the week and we’re very pleased with him.”
Mullins also indicated yesterday he could have as many as half a dozen contenders for the National which he won six years ago with the Walsh-ridden Hedgehunter. The champion jockey was also successful on board Papillon in the year 2000.
However, other jockey plans for the Mullins team – which could also include Arbor Supreme, Ballytrim, Dooneys Gate, Our Monty and Scotsirish – are up in the air.
The season’s leading jockey Paul Townend faces up to four weeks on the sidelines with a broken collarbone sustained at Navan on Saturday while the trainer’s nephew, Emmett, also suffered a suspected broken collarbone earlier in the week.
“Everything I have in the race at the moment is going, if they get in,” Willie Mullins added.
Townend currently has a nine-winner lead (76-67) in the jockeys’ championship over Davy Russell who is also on the injury sidelines but expects to be back in action in time to ride Becauseicouldntsee in the Aintree National.
There are 20 racedays left in the 2010-11 National Hunt season which winds up at Punchestown on May 7th.
Another Irish jockey on the sidelines is Barry Geraghty who was hurt in a fall at Newbury on Saturday but expects to be back in action this weekend.
“I got a kick in the back of the shoulder where there is bruising and I have little use of my left arm. I got a bad whiplash from a sudden meeting of the ground but there is nothing major,” Geraghty said yesterday.
“I’d say I’d be looking at the weekend. It’s a good week to be missing so I am not overly panicked.”
Geraghty is a former Grand National winner on Monty’s Pass in 2003 but is currently without a ride in the four-and-a-half-mile marathon.
