A new jockey will be needed for the leading Grand National contender The Druids Nephew, following an attritional weekend in which both Barry Geraghty and Davy Russell suffered bone breaks. Neil Mulholland, who trains the horse, revealed on Monday morning that he had hoped Geraghty would ride The Druids Nephew in the Aintree race and that Russell was in his mind as the next best option.
Geraghty partnered The Druids Nephew to an impressive success at the Cheltenham Festival a fortnight ago, on the strength of which the horse’s National odds have crashed to 14-1, putting him third in the betting. The respected Timeform organisation have him at the top of their ratings for Aintree, ahead of the 86 other entrants.
“When he won at Cheltenham, we didn’t really want to talk about Aintree, we just said we’d enjoy the day,” Mulholland said on Monday. “But I met Barry at Newbury a few days later and he said, ‘Listen, you have to go for the National’.
“I think Barry was hoping to ride him, so it’s a big, big shame. Obviously the other jockey who was in the frame was Davy Russell. So Plan A and Plan B have both gone out the window and we’re on to Plan C.
“There’s been plenty of agents on the phone this morning. I’m going racing now and I’m sure I’ll have heard from plenty more people by the end of the day. There’s a lot of names in the hat but there’s no need to rush.”
The Grand National will take place a fortnight on Saturday on 11 April but Mulholland will choose a rider long before then, because he wants the jockey in question to school The Druids Nephew over a replica National fence which has been built at Lambourn. However, the trainer plans to wait for some rain before schooling the horse and can see no significant rain in the forecast for the Berkshire village before Thursday at the earliest.
Asked about his policy on jockeys, Mulholland said: “I use the best available. Obviously AP [McCoy] rides for me today. I have the boys who ride out for me every day, like Mark Quinlan, who’s very, very good. But it’ll be a top jockey who rides him, that’s what I do know. For a horse like him in the National, you want a top jockey.”
Mulholland has only had The Druids Nephew at his Wiltshire stable for about a year, having inherited the horse from Andy Turnell after the horse ended last season with an injury. He feels the eight-year-old’s jumping has improved with experience and believes that his slightly disappointing effort in the Hennessy was caused by the race coming too soon after his previous outing a fortnight before.
“He jumped very well at Cheltenham and he travelled well, which you need to do in the National. He stays. I think he ticks a lot of the boxes and he’s third-favourite now. If he jumps, he’s obviously got a big shout.”
Timeform did their bit to help Mulholland in making his choice by naming the top-rated jockeys around Aintree, according to their own calculations, with Sam Waley-Cohen and Ruby Walsh coming out on top. One of the prominent names on the list, fifth-placed Timmy Murphy, has become unfamiliar to racing followers, as a shoulder injury has kept him on the sidelines for 14 months.
But Murphy insisted last week that he intended to return to action at some point and the latest reports say he has been riding out in Lambourn and doing fitness work at Oaksey House there. He has yet to apply to the British Horseracing Authority to have his licence renewed but that could be arranged in time for the Grand National meeting if Murphy was determined to be there.
