Amid the sombre mood that subdued Cheltenham on November 17, no one could sanely have predicted the jumps season would end in glory for Ruby Walsh. Indeed, it looked for all the world that a season, if not a career or the one thing still worse, had ended before thousands of horrified eyes that dank afternoon.

With frightening speed and force, the top half of Walsh's body was driven into the Cotswold turf by the somersaulting form of Willyanwoody. It was the worst fall most of us will ever wish to see and the silence that permeated an arena thronged by 30,000 people told of fears and respect for the special one of his generation.

How remarkable, then, that this final day of the season will fête the most recognisable grey in racing. In his native Ireland, Walsh has come from a mile back to snatch his fifth successive jockeys' championship. In Britain, he has won on almost a third of his rides and taken the leading jockey awards at Cheltenham and Aintree.

Walsh's total of Irish winners has been beaten only once and he is just short of 200 across both championships. As he sat at Punchestown, he recalled how different it might have been. “It could have been horrendous,” he said of that fall. “It was only by small fractions that I got away with it. I had that bit of luck Fitzy [Mick Fitzgerald] didn't have at Aintree.”

Getting away with it, in Walsh's terms, meant six weeks on the sidelines, shoulder surgery and the mental torture of watching Sam Thomas write his own fanciful scripts as a winning deputy. Yet it was easy to understand his meaning.

Fitzgerald, his close friend, is unlikely to race-ride again after sustaining serious neck injuries for a second time. A jump jockey's existence hangs by the narrowest thread. “It does jolt you when things like that happen,” Walsh said. “You wonder and you worry. You think ‘that could be me'.”

But then, in a gabbled reprise of his golden spring, Walsh explained why no such thoughts, no such falls, can deter him. “You do this job for the likes of Master Minded at Cheltenham, for Gwanako over the big fences at Aintree. That rush you get on those days - you can't replicate that feeling. I love riding and I dread the day I'm not doing it.”

When he came back from injury on Boxing Day and won a second King George VI Chase, he was still at a stage where most would not have considered physical work. “When you put on the colours and you're all revved up, there's no pain. It was afterwards, trying to put my suit jacket on, or changing gears in the car, that I realised how sore I still was.”

Yet his season has scarcely missed a beat since then. Well, maybe a couple - Kauto Star being beaten both at Cheltenham and Aintree would have been predicted by precious few, let alone his jockey. Sanguine after the Gold Cup, Walsh was in unfamiliar rage at Liverpool.

“The Gold Cup wasn't hard to take. I'm not a bad loser and, on the day, Denman was the best horse by far.” Does he expect to regain the ride from Thomas? “That's a tough decision for someone else to make,” he said wryly.

“At Aintree, I rode to the wrong tactics and I was as much annoyed with myself as with Paul [Nicholls, the trainer]. He gave me the instructions but, at halfway, I normally kick into my own mode. That day, I didn't and I'm still not sure why. But I've lost no faith in Kauto. He'll be back.”

Nor has he been deflated by the Aintree defeat of Master Minded, who had looked a wonder horse at Cheltenham. “He still is,” Walsh insisted. “He's a superstar. The longer trip beat him at Aintree, simple as that.”

Walsh admits he had given up on the Irish title, especially after sitting out a Cheltenham whip ban he still considers unjust. And being champion means much to him, even after six titles.

He seems to have been around so long, yet Walsh is not yet 29 and remote from any thoughts of retirement. Despite all the accolades, he still frets about “putting things right, improving every day”. His two main trainers - Nicholls in Britain, Willie Mullins in Ireland - are now both champions, too. Life is good. A whole lot better than it might have been after that grim November day.