Christy Roche retires

Christy Roche has relinquished his trainer’s licence and handed the job to his son Padraig.

Speaking from the family’s Curragh yard, Padraig said: “Dad is taking a step back but everything else stays the same. The owners have been good enough to leave the horses with me and there’s room for a few more. I might have the first runners in my own name next weekend.”

A seven-time champion flat jockey during his 30-year career in the saddle, Christy Roche retired from race-riding in 1998. He made an immediate impact as a trainer, saddling his first Cheltenham Festival winner in 1999 with Khayrawani in the Coral Cup.

Other horses to have won big races for Roche included Galway Plate winners Grimes and Far From Trouble, Cheltenham scorers Youlneverwalkalone and Like-A-Butterfly, and the high-class Joe Mac, and Le Coudray. All of those raced for J.P. McManus. Bannow Bay was another stable star.

Aged 67, Roche is a keen golfer. In 2016 he helped his club Cill Dara to win the All-Ireland title at Carton House.

Faugheen and Douvan back in the frame for Cheltenham

Willie Mullins is planning to enter Faugheen in next month’s BHP Insurances Irish Champion Hurdle as he continues to ponder the gelding’s disappointing run over Christmas.

The 10-year-old was the odds-on favourite for the Ryanair Hurdle at Leopardstown but was pulled-up with two to jump after dropping away tamely, leaving connections mystified.

Mullins reports the 2015 Champion Hurdle hero to be in good heart at present, with the Grade 1 contest on 3 February a possible opportunity for swift redemption.

Faugheen’s owner Rich Ricci also has another star, Douvan, on the sidelines at present and Mullins has an open mind as to whether the pair will line up at the Cheltenham Festival in March.

He added: “It is day by day with himself (Faugheen) and Douvan and while Cheltenham is obviously the target if he keeps going, I’m not making any real plans or targets.”

SIZING JOHN

Jessica Harrington remains at a loss to definitively explain the below-par performance of Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Sizing John at Leopardstown over Christmas.

He made a fine reappearance in the John Durkan Memorial Chase at Punchestown in heavy ground last month, but could only beat Yorkhill home when a distant seventh of eight finishers in the Leopardstown Christmas Chase, for which he was sent off the odds-on favourite.

Following the result of blood tests, Harrington said: “We have not found any clinical reason so far from the tests carried out.”

Owned by the late Alan and Ann Potts, Sizing John is the general second-favourite for a Gold Cup repeat in March behind Nicky Henderson’s King George VI Chase winner Might Bite.