Not too long after his sudden retirement from race-riding at Thurles in December, Davy Russell agreed to an interview with Joe Molloy from the Irish radio station Newstalk. A good talker sitting down with an even better listener, it was always going to make for an interesting chat. Straight off the bat, the former jockey explained he had been of a mind to quit for a while but had been forced to wait a couple of days before the winner he wanted to go out on materialised in Liberty Dance.
At the end of a wide-ranging career retrospective that took in the many highs and lows of more than two decades spent in the saddle, Molloy wrapped up proceedings, joking that it would come as no surprise to see his interviewee back in action at another Cheltenham Festival at some point in the future. “Ah no, that’s it!” insisted Russell, making it clear that his decision was made and he had wanted to “get out before he fell out of love with the game”. At 43 years of age and having already defied expectations by returning from a broken neck sustained in a heavy fall at Limerick three years ago, the impression given was that this weight room elder saw no point in pushing his luck.
Life has been good to Russell in the intervening months, albeit proving the famous truism that it’s what happens when you’re making, or have already made other plans. Following a retirement that was shorter than many people’s holidays, he announced he would be returning to the day job to help out trainer Gordon Elliott and his owners following the news that the trainer’s luckless lead jockey Jack Kennedy had broken his leg.
Having drawn two blanks at Fairyhouse on his first day back, Russell returned to the winners’ enclosure the following day at Punchestown, before a couple of far more high-profile victories during February’s Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown. Kennedy’s failure to recover ahead of a self-imposed Cheltenham deadline left Russell with several further tilts at glory before he once again attempts to bring down the curtain on his storied career.
A three-time Irish champion jockey who tasted Gold Cup victory on Lord Windermere in 2014 and will for ever be famous for his association with back-to-back Grand National winner Tiger Roll, Russell already has 25 Festival winners to his name. He has yet to add to them after nine attempts over the past two days, but tackles Thursday’s card with a couple of live chances.
In Mighty Potter, Russell will get the leg up on what is likely to be a short-priced favourite for the afternoon’s opener, the Turners Novices’ Chase, while in a more intriguing turn of events he is booked to ride Fury Road in the Ryanair Chase. Owned by Michael O’Leary, with whom Russell has had a long and occasionally fractious relationship, it would smack of destiny calling if Fury Road were to carry him to victory in this unplanned career encore.
Famously sacked by O’Leary over a cup of tea at Punchestown races in 2013, Russell’s decision to emerge from retirement was the subject of stinging and slightly condescending criticism from the Ryanair CEO on Tuesday. “Personally I wish he’d stayed retired,” he said in an interview with ITV Racing. “He has a young family with young children and at a certain point you should put your family first and not your riding career. When you get out at that age in your early 40s you don’t bounce, you don’t mend the way you did before. He’s had a long career and he has nothing to achieve by coming back and I don’t think he should’ve come out of retirement.”
Cheltenham 1.30 Mighty Potter 2.10 The Changing Man (nap) 2.50 Shishkin 3.30 Flooring Porter 4.10 So Scottish (nb) 4.50 Magical Zoe 5.30 Beauport
Hexham 1.50 Caithness 2.30 Dysania 3.10 Vandemere 3.50 Prince Dundee 4.30 Mr Harp 5.10 Tom Creen
Southwell 5.05 Habanero Star 5.40 Thomas Equinas 6.10 Daafy 6.40 High Ovation 7.10 Shining Crystal 7.40 Wadacre Grace 8.10 Ustath
Chelmsford City 6.00 Lilkian 6.30 Class Member 7.00 Zealot 7.30 Kessar Power 8.00 Dawn Vega 8.30 Angle Land
For a brief moment on Wednesday, it became all too apparent why O’Leary did not want to see Russell back on a racecourse, as the jockey rode his mount Galvin upsides defending champion Delta Work in the closing stages of the Cross Country Chase. Ultimately, O’Leary’s horse was too strong and held on to retain the swansong crown that he so cruelly deprived his former stablemate Tiger Roll last year, costing Russell a comeback Festival winner in the process. With two days to go that winner may come still before the pipe and slippers are pressed back into service.
