Racing: Walsh on course to match McCoy

It is the purpose of the Independent Newspaper Novice Chase at Cheltenham to identify the major celebrities of the future. That intention worked twofold at the base of Cleeve Hill last month.

Paul Nicholls's Azertyuiop, the winner at Prestbury Park, is now the favourite for the Irish Independent Arkle Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March. His 16-length destruction of Golden Alpha makes the five-year-old the first winner this season, for the month of November, of the Royal & SunAlliance Novice Chaser Award (in conjunction with The Independent).

Azertyuiop's jockey is better known, yet Ruby Walsh is still only 23 and, during a campaign which has seen him spread his talents across both Britain and his native Ireland, he has emerged as a potential long-term successor to Tony McCoy as champion jockey. He would be the first Ruby to win the title.

His may be a strange name in this most macho of sports, sounding more like the provider of home-made chutneys for the Women's Institute, but there is no doubting Walsh's pedigree in National Hunt racing.

His grandfather Rupert, from whom Walsh has inherited the abbreviated christian name, started the family destiny at Greenhills near Kill. It was from these premises that the middle Walsh, trainer and media-man Ted, sent out Papillon to win the millennium Grand National.

It was a victory which meant that two bookies in nearby Naas closed an hour early, suffering from hollow tills.

Ted Walsh won 11 amateur jockeys' titles in Ireland with a style that was more functional than gorgeous. Ruby is not cut from the same material. He is the silk to father Ted's hessian. He is also recognised as a wise tactician for his years. It seems somehow appropriate that the tyro has steel grey hair, for his is an old head on young shoulders.

"In our day, you just got up and tried to win and it didn't make any difference how you looked," Ted says. "Everything is a little more professional now and people are more conscious about how they appear.

"I was only an amateur, a different thing altogether, succeeding at a low level. There is no comparison with Ruby. You shouldn't even mention us in the same breath.

"Ruby is going the right way. He's got youth on his side and he's getting very valuable experience. Given luck with injuries he should do nothing but improve over the next four or five years. He knows himself he's got a fair bit to go because you never stop learning or improving as a jockey.

"What he's doing at the moment, riding here and in England, seems to suit him well and I think it's wrong anyway to give too much advice to someone who's 23 years of age. He can make his own decisions.

"At the moment he's happy because he's riding good quality horses for Willie [Mullins] and I'm fortunate to have a couple for him. If it's quality he wants he's got the best of both worlds. If he wants quantity he'll have to go to England."

Ruby Walsh, for the time being at least, is happy with the status quo. The renaissance in Irish racing over recent years means there is not the same impetus to decamp over the water.

Top jockeys – like Carberry, Geraghty, O'Dwyer, William-son and Walsh himself – can ride top horses and earn top money at home. England is no longer the compelling cold oasis of the winter months.

"I never say never, but at the moment I've got great jobs here and everything is working out really well," Walsh jnr says. "Obviously Paul Nicholls is a great man himself with great horses, but I'd like to keep things just the way they are at the minute. I'm at the stage now that I always wanted to be. I have it all now. I just hope that I can keep it going, keep everybody happy."

Perhaps Walsh should take a taster with him to England. For when he breaks bread it is usually with the man who has more reason than most to fear him.

"Most nights that I'm in England I spend at Tony McCoy's house," he says. "I wouldn't say there is a burning rivalry between me and him but everyone is judged against Tony McCoy. You just have to try to get somewhere near his level. He is the best. He has ridden more winners than anybody else. He sets the standard for the rest of us."