'The title is something I'd love to win': Oisin Murphy on his desire to be champ

If you want to be the best, learn from the best. As maxims go, it's not a bad starting point for any aspirational youngster, although Oisin Murphy has realised that sometimes it can pay to take one step further in your quest for excellence.

If you want to be the best, sit next to the best, seems to have been his motto since he arrived in the British weighing room, and given he currently stands as odds-on favourite for the jockeys' championship thanks to a colossal workload and an unquenchable thirst for winners, it comes as no surprise to learn that the peg he's stationed alongside belongs to Silvestre de Sousa.

The mighty Brazilian atom has annexed three titles with scores of up to 155 winners from a substantial 854 rides, and the 23-year-old has plainly sat, looked and learned what it takes to get the job done. What's more, he has the same naked desire for the task that De Sousa possesses and plenty of his other colleagues either lack or are keen to play down. The champion's crown is not a fashionable item but it's one Murphy is keen to try for size.