Talking Horses: Robbie Power to retire after Punchestown send-off

Robbie Power, whose big-race victories include the Grand National, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Irish Grand National, said on Thursday that he will retire from race-riding after partnering Teahupoo in the Paddy Power Champion Hurdle at Punchestown on Friday.

Power landed the Grand National on Silver Birch in 2007 and the Gold Cup aboard Jessica Harrington’s Sizing John a decade later. He has struggled with a series of injuries in recent seasons, however, including a fractured hip which kept him on the sidelines from October until late January during the 2021-22 campaign.

“It’s down to the injuries,” Power said after winning a handicap chase on Magic Daze at Punchestown on Thursday. “I’m 41 next month and I’m not getting any younger. I had injections in my hip but it didn’t really work. The whole family are coming tomorrow and I’ve got a couple of good rides left. My wife knew and my agent knew, but my father always told me if you tell one person you’ve told one person too many, so I was trying to keep it as quiet as possible.

“There’s been several days I’ve woke up thinking this was it. If I’d won the Gold Cup [on Minella Indo, the runner-up] I’d have gone then, but Punchestown has been lucky for me so to go here, where I rode my first winner and now I’m guaranteed to ride my last one here, that will do.”

The first of Power’s 31 Grade One wins before his final rides on Friday came in February 2005 on Carrigeen Victor, also trained by Harrington, while his most recent top-level success was on Colin Tizzard’s Fiddlerontheroof in the Tolworth Hurdle in January 2020.

He rode 15 Grade One winners for the Harrington stable, and 11 for Tizzard, including the Betfair Chase in 2019 on Lostintranslation.

Power came with a