JOCKEY ANGLE with Paddy Flood: One of the sweetest-tasting winners he'll ever ride On this week's episode of ‘The Jockey Angle’, brought to you by William Hill, Paddy Flood selects a smashing ride from Tramore from Ian Power aboard Rattledelatch, a sweet win from Cork for Mark Walsh and a horse with the X-factor from Ballydoyle. Race replays are FREE to watch from all Irish tracks and a selection of premier British tracks sponsored by William Hill. Paddy Flood’s Analysis I would say Mark Walsh has ridden a lot of good winners in his life. A lot of great ones, a lot of Cheltenhams, a lot of Aintrees and Punchestowns, but I think this will be probably one of the sweetest-tasting winners he'll ever ride in his career. We all know Mark Walsh was JP McManus's first jockey and in my opinion, was let down a little bit by announcing Harry Cobden just out of the blue, and then Mark was no longer their main man. Mark is after having a quiet summer, but he's after teaming up with Sean and Bernardine Mulryan. Their silks are the red cap, yellow sash through the middle, and navy colours. In this race he is on a horse called Atomic City who was a very decent flat horse. Mark actually drops this fella in. The horse is favourite or close to favourite anyway. It's a three-year-old hurdle, he'd have to be quite good at jumping to be that far back in a race of this quality because they're tricky three-year-old hurdles. If you're not handy away, sometimes you can get left behind. Just look at the horse and look at Mark's hands. His horse has his head cocked sideways with Mark. He's got a great latch on him. And to ride a three-year-old hurdler, who's never run over hurdles down to a hurdle when they're that keen and fierce, and not overdo it with your hands, is a fair bit of jockeymanship. If you came up and got rough with that horse, what he's going to do is just run faster, or try and run faster with you. It's a very, very brave ride by Mark Walsh. He obviously knew what was under the bonnet. Mark has been the one getting chased in these for many, many years. Now he's doing the chasing. He's after making up a lot of ground there in a short space of time. The JP horse is Step By Step, Harry Cobden obviously riding him. Mark latches onto his tail. Mark doing what he did in those colours many, many times. He doesn't commit too early, sits on his tail and actually uses him as the buddy there to give him a lead down over the last couple. In my opinion, JP got rid of this man a season too soon, if not two seasons too soon. You see him here down to a hurdle. You watch Mark, his balance, his posture, his confidence to not take the horse off the bridle. He's a top, top-class rider. Mark Walsh would have done the job for another year or two years, because there's not too many on the big days that he misses. To beat Harry Cobden in the JP silks for his new retained owners, Sean and Bernardine Mulryan, that will be sweet, sweet as honey, I would say.
