Johnny Ward believes the newly retired duo of Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh provided a phenomenal service to aspiring female jockeys.
Carberry announced her retirement today after riding Josies Orders to victory at Punchestown – a day after her sister-in-law also hung up her saddle.
The 33-year-old has been one of the top riders in the amateur ranks for well over a decade and claimed a memorable Irish Grand National victory in 2011 aboard Organisedconfusion.
Ward, speaking to Tommy Martin on Saturday’s Off The Ball, shared his admiration for the way in which Carberry and Walsh performed at the highest level.
“I got a couple of texts yesterday of rumours Nina was going to retire,” Ward said.
“And I thought, I can kind of see that I suppose - and then Katie Walsh retired last night. So obviously I was thinking the rumour was about the wrong lady amateur.
“But then Nina rode the winner in the first race today in a cross-country race and she saluted the crowd in a manner that wasn’t befitting of the occasion.
“Nina has a child with Ted Walsh Junior but she came back, so it looked obvious she was going to go on for a while. They say when you have a baby everything in the world changes and how you see it.
“I’d say she has her maternal hat on and has other things to concentrate on. The two of them have promoted jumps racing to women aspiring to get into racing.
“Racing is about 50:50 in terms of male and female staff. But to tell them you don’t need to just be a foot soldier – you can be there at the top. There were four lady rider winners at Cheltenham out of 28, that’s one in seven.
“And I think they did phenomenal service for that, whether they wanted to or not. We never felt it was any deterrent that it wasn’t a bloke on top. Nina is a lot better than a lot of the lads riding and so was Katie.”
Written by James Hopper
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