From the moment that Ruby Walsh hit the ground too hard on a slate-grey day at Punchestown in November, he had one date in mind.

March 13, the first day of the Cheltenham Festival, and the reason for every punishing gym session as he recovers from a broken right leg to be passed fit by the doctors.

If someone hired Dr Frankenstein to create the ultimate jump jockey, where might he start?

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A fusion of the talents of John Francome (11 Festival winners) and Peter Scudamore (13) would be an interesting case study; a mix of artistry and nerveless guile underpinned by the sort of irresistible, raw determination that would send the immovable object scurrying for cover.

Until it comes to the Cheltenham Festival, when even the combination of Richard Dunwoody (18) and Sir Anthony McCoy (31) would still place that creation behind Walsh.

The Irishman has ridden 56 winners at the meeting, being the leading jockey at the Festival 11 times in the last 14 years, and is well clear of the pack in the all-time list.

But not even Walsh can out-run bad luck when it strikes. That day at Punchestown, itself his first back after a week off with a hand injury, had begun with two falls and a winner. Walsh’s next ride was on Let’s Dance, an odds-on favourite whom he had ridden to win at the Festival last season, but what happened next was less Strictly Come Dancing as strictly not for the faint-hearted when the mare fell and rolled over Walsh.

“I’d had an unbelievable run with falls through the summer – maybe only two,” he recalled. “I had three that day, but that’s just how it happens.

“Let’s Dance is a good jumper but, when a good jumper miscalculates, they usually get it very wrong. She caught the top of the hurdle, slithered sideways and I couldn’t get off her back so I was caught.

“The doctor at Punchestown is an A&E specialist and she administered morphine to me – which always makes me emotional for some reason – before I was put in the ambulance. Then the pain goes away and you start to think I’d better ring Gillian [his wife] and tell her I’m OK. Then you work out the weeks until you’re back.”

Walsh had broken the right tibia and fibula and already reckoned on being back well before the 16 weeks and three days between then and the first day of the Festival.

“When you break the tib you usually break the fib with it,” he said with the casual manner of a man who has undertaken a crash course in orthopaedics in the last 20 years. “It’s the third time I’ve broken this leg and you get to know how your body works.”

Walsh has learned not to rush nature and so accepts that he will miss the inaugural Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown this weekend and with it the ride on Faugheen in the BHP Insurance Irish Champion Hurdle.

Faugheen is still at the top of Walsh’s list of horses he is looking forward to riding at Cheltenham, but his lofty reputation took a dent when he was pulled up at Leopardstown at Christmas. Willie Mullins, Faugheen’s trainer, tested the horse for just about everything bar galloping gout and Saturday Night Fever, but nothing came to light.

“It was inexplicable,” Walsh said. “We’d all love to have an explanation, so that’s the worry until you run again. But his work has been very good.”

One certainty is that Walsh has not lost faith.

“He’s getting me through the gym work anyway.”

Malcolm Jefferson, one of northern racing’s leading jumps trainers, has died aged 71 following a long illness.

His daughter, Ruth, takes over the licence and will have her first runners at Wetherby this afternoon and stable star Waiting Patiently could run in the Grade One Ascot Chase later this month.