Jockey Jack Kennedy is set for an extended period away from racing having sustained a fractured leg.
The injury has been confirmed after a fall at Naas yesterday, with Top Bandit also suffering a fatal injury in the incident.
“It didn’t look good. I went down to the fence when he got the fall and he looked pretty sore. I didn’t like what I had seen to be honest”, trainer Gordon Elliot told Racing TV in the wake of Kennedy’s fall.
“We’re not going to have him for the foreseeable future, from what I’ve seen anyway, not unless (there’s) a miracle really. We’ll see how he is, we have eight weeks to Cheltenham and it’s not ideal but we’ll see how he is. He just hasn’t been getting the rub of the green. He looked like he was in pole position to be champion jockey but it’s not going to happen this year and hopefully it will happen some time for him.”
While he was stretchered off the track in Naas yesterday, Kennedy was back at work on Monday morning, albeit with the help of crutches.
It’s not yet know if Kennedy will be able to ride at the Cheltenham Festival in March. Kennedy is a two-time winner of the Goffs Thyestes Chase for Gordon Elliot, first on the 7/2f Monbeg Notorious in 2018 before taking his second chase honours in 2021 on board Coko Beach.
This year’s renewal of ‘the race that stops a county’ is set for Thursday 26 January.