Walsh opens up over retirement

Recently-retired jockey Katie Walsh admits she sometimes misses the thrill of racing but insists she will not reverse her decision.

Walsh, 34 today, announced her decision to retire from racing in April and she now concentrates on working behind the scenes for her father, Ted, and her husband, Ross O'Sullivan, in his yard in Kildare in Ireland.

Walsh is also regularly seen helping out Willie Mullins at the Curragh and while she says she's content away from the day-to-day spotlight, she admits sometimes to missing the cut and thrust of racing and winning on the saddle.

“I miss it, I'm not going to say I don't, I do, but I'm very happy with my decision,” she said in an interview with the Irish Independent.

“I think there's a couple of happy people, my parents were happy, my husband was happy. I was very lucky, I got very few falls and it was nice to go out on my own terms.

“It was a decision that I made myself and something that I wasn't forced to do. There are still people that watch the Bumper that say ‘God, I still turn on the bumper to see if you're riding one' but I'm afraid that won't be happening again.”

Walsh rode 51 winners in total in a career spanning five years and achieved the highest-placed finish by any female rider in the Grand National at Aintree when finishing third aboard Seabass in 2012.