Last year's Grand National winning jockey, Ruby Walsh, looks set to team up with the Aintree legend Ginger McCain to ride Hanakham in Saturday's spectacular. But the booking depends on Papillon being taken out of the race at today's confirmation stage.
The presumption that Papillon and the other Irish-trained entries would be formally taken out of the Grand National today has been thrown into some doubt by Ladbrokes' decision to reintroduce Irish horses into their Grand National ante-post betting. However, if they don't travel, Walsh has been snapped up by McCain, who trained Red Rum to win the big race three times in the 1970s.
"Hanakham needed a top-quality jockey and we've certainly got one in Ruby," McCain said yesterday. Hanakham won the 1997 Sun-Alliance Chase under Richard Dunwoody but has been plagued by injury problems since then.
"He is a class horse. If he had not had so many problems he would have been a Gold Cup horse. As it is he's only had something like 12 races, so he hasn't got that many miles on the clock," McCain added of the 12-year-old, who is rated a 40 to 1 shot by William Hill. Walsh's decision to accept the ride on See More Business in the Cheltenham Gold Cup resulted in some criticism last month due to the foot-and-mouth restrictions placed by the Government.
But there was a low-key Department of Agriculture response yesterday to the reports of Irish jockeys travelling to Liverpool for this week's festival, which now takes on even greater significance in view of the cancellation of Cheltenham.
"Our advice remains not to travel and the Minister has been very clear about that," a spokesman for Minister Joe Walsh said. "But we cannot force people not to go and at the end of the day people have to make up their own minds. It's very much a matter for themselves." Another Irish-based Grand National winner who could yet travel to Liverpool is Paul Carberry, who hasn't raced since October due to a broken leg, but who has been offered the mount on the 14 to 1 shot Noble Lord in the big race.
"The leg isn't too bad but I'm still not sure what I'm doing. I will see the doctor on Monday or Tuesday and decide after that," Carberry said.
On the home front it, appears increasingly likely a decision on whether racing can resume won't be taken until later this week. The Minister's advisory group have yet to report back and a Department spokesman said: "There is no time-scale for their report, but they will need to consider things and a decision is likely some time later this week."
There had been hopes a decision would be reached today after the group, chaired by Professor Michael Monaghan, met the Turf Club and the Irish Horseracing Authority on Friday.
