'Having my counsellor is a big help - I don't feel anything I bring to her is too much'

Oisin Murphy tightened his grip on the jockeys' championship with a treble at Bath on Wednesday. As he continues his bid for a fourth jockeys' title we have republished this interview, which was first published exclusively for Racing Post Members' Club subscribers on the eve of Royal Ascot - a meeting where Murphy went on to claim Group 1 wins aboard Asfoora and Khaadem.

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Oisin Murphy's house in Upper Lambourn is in a state of turmoil. It's having a makeover – although it already looks pretty immaculate to me – and there's furniture piled up in the most inconvenient of places, which wouldn't be so bad had Murphy not just noticed, in mid-conversation, that the people who've moved the furniture have also scratched his smart wooden floor.

The talk moves in stream-of-consciousness fashion from Royal Ascot and the tribulations of being an elite jockey (my words, not his) with too many second places to his name this season and not enough winners (his words, not mine), to those of being a homeowner with a headache.

It could have been worse; I could have turned up yesterday, when he was grappling with the aftermath of a spell of in-car projectile vomiting that may or may not have been caused by E Coli but certainly did his upholstery no favours. Whatever the issue, though, there's no doubt Murphy is a man who examines his life in minute detail, sifts the good and bad and strives to make sense of it all.

"I think about things a lot," says the 28-year-old, "which I think is good, but it can be tiring," and he cricks his neck one more time, with a grimace that may be riding-related discomfort or possibly his brain seeking a rest. Introspection is his default mindset, it seems, and he's keen that the outside world doesn't get the wrong impression, even when it quite probably hasn't.

"Yesterday I don't think I interviewed very well on the TV because I was in such bad form that all I wanted to do was throw up," he ponders, "but I make an effort to say what I mean, make eye contact, not say 'um' and 'er' too much."

He's conscious of his body language but he's also aware of his broader responsibilities as a well-known racing figure with a duty of care to the sport and its public. "When kids are hanging over the rails I make an effort to say hello, even cantering to the start, if I'm on a quiet one, and I get messages from people saying I made their child's day, which is good."

Yet he still finds time to analyse his riding in forensic detail, dissect his stats and look for areas of improvement in a campaign that already sees him sitting, with no complacency whatsoever, at the top of the jockeys' table. For many people, that would be enough, but the lack of a Group 1 winner and all those pesky second places are buzzing away in his ear.

Is it any wonder he's also a stickler for getting his full complement of sleep, while younger rivals, most specifically Tom Marquand, can apparently get by on hardly any and still come out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?

"Tom wears a Whoop band [no, nor had I, but I gather they're a 'thing'] that calculates how much sleep you've had – lots of the jockeys do – and he told me he'd had only four hours' sleep the night before we both rode at Chantilly this month, but he looked as fresh as a daisy.

"I don't wear one, but I know I had seven hours and I was nowhere near as bright as him. I wonder how he does it. I have to get close to eight hours a night. I ride better that way. I've discussed it with my counsellor a lot."

Murphy lands the Sagaro Stakes on Coltrane, his big hope for the Ascot Gold CupCredit: Edward Whitaker

'My counsellor's dealt with some real lunatics'

It comes as no surprise that Murphy has a counsellor, although it sounds like a challenging job. It started at the suggestion of the BHA as he prepared to come back from his year's ban in 2022 – for breaking Covid regulations and misleading the authorities – and has continued ever since, presumably at one time addressing a worrying dependency on alcohol and a well-publicised Newmarket bar-room fracas, but now, it seems, having a broader reach.

"I agreed with the BHA that I'd do it and it was a big help to me, so I still do it twice a week," he says. "It's not inexpensive but it's a big help, and even if it was only a little help it'd be worth it.

"I discuss everything with her, from Chelsea sacking Pochettino, to getting run away with going down to the start, and everything in between. She's dealt with lots of sportspeople, some real lunatics, so I don't feel that anything I bring to her is too much."

There's a brief and amused discussion as to what level of lunacy Murphy himself brings to the couch, but this isn't a man who purports to have demons – alcohol seemingly having been given the heave-ho in favour of the occasional nerve-soothing cigarillo that he claims is "a very good habit to have" – rather one whose success seems to hinge on the borderline obsessive tendencies that keep his mind racing but also his hunger for success in a state of permanent keenness.

"The stables I'm riding for are in form," he concedes, "and if they can stay that way through Ascot it'll be a big help, but when you have five rides at a meeting and four finish second . . ."

I put it to him that there are a lot of people out there who would love to ride four seconds at a meeting. "I'm not one of them," he retorts, not angry, just honest, "and I've had only a handful of two-year-old winners this season, so that's on my mind as well."

All this from a man who has ridden more than 40 winners since the championship got under way and at an enviable 24 per cent strike-rate.

Nonetheless, he adds: "I haven't won that many Group races this year. Middle Earth, Giavellotto and Coltrane, yes, but not as many as I'd have liked, none in Dubai, none in Saudi, none in Qatar. I had three places on Pegasus Day at Gulfstream but no winner. Just one handicap at the Guineas meeting.

Middle Earth (right) beats King Of Conquest in the Aston Park StakesCredit: Edward Whitaker

"What can you do, though? I'm riding sharp and trying to maintain that confidence, but one week everything clicks and the next you move a stride early, you brush someone on your outside: two days.

"When I haven't had a winner and I've been beaten on loads of favourites, I shouldn't beat myself up about it, but I do if I think I should have won on them." 

His mind flits back to last July, when he missed about a fortnight through suspension. "I can't afford to do it again," he reflects, but he's keen to make the crucial separation between matters such as suspensions, which may be controllable, and the rest of life's slings and arrows.

"A lot of things are completely out of my hands, like the weather or horses' health," he begins, promisingly, before adding: "It's nothing to do with me but I still think about it."

The trick is to look forward, not back, he says, but it's not always easy.

"I don't come home at night and watch what went on today. I watch the news and look at tomorrow's rides, but it frustrates me, knowing I could have done better, so I use other things to distract myself.

"I have a showjumper who just won a five-star speed class in Cannes, I have some eventers and I'm a Chelsea fan, but it's a 24/7 job," and by way of proof he turns his phone over to check who the latest buzz is from.

"I've had 50 individual WhatsApp messages since we've been speaking [all of them A-list], so it's non-stop, but I noticed when I was banned in 2022 that there were far fewer messages, which I didn't like at all, so I don't complain."

Smiling through: life isn't all serious for one of the game's great thinkersCredit: Edward Whitaker

'Everyone's excited, whether they've got a 20-1 shot or a 2-1 shot'

It's a bit of a relief when Murphy reassures me that he is happy some days and an impish grin lights up his face. He knows he must sound a bit gloomy, but he's not a gloomy sort at all; it's just that it can be a demanding business chasing a fourth jockeys' title, especially after a couple of years of fending off tabloid interest.

"I had one month in one of my championship-winning seasons when I had 40-odd winners in Britain, and I haven't got into that sort of mode this year, but I'm working very hard," he insists needlessly, moving swiftly on from his former role as the Daily Mail's "disgraced champion jockey". "There's nobody that does more riding out for different trainers, and that's all you can do: work hard and try to stay healthy."

You couldn't fault him for application, certainly, but there are times when he comes across as the polar opposite of the jockey who will be most conspicuously absent from the track when the royal meeting begins on Tuesday.

The man from Killarney, a mine of information on pedigrees and sales, is a thoughtful communicator, but he's the kind of chap who professes on his own website to read the poems of Sylvia Plath in his spare time, and although there's a 'merch' section on there as well – OM logo baseball caps now only £22.50 – we're not even close to Frankie Dettori territory, for better or for worse. If the BHA is looking for a new 'face of British racing', it will have to look elsewhere.

"It doesn't even cross my mind that the rest of us need to step up to replace him," says Murphy, who has a mere 28 Group 1s to his name. "He rode for the powerhouses of British racing throughout his career and built up a celebrity profile to go with it, and I'm not capable of that. Other riders will make their own profiles but they won't be like his.

"Of course British racing will miss him, but it'll give others an opportunity to find their role, their niche in the ecosystem."

So, Ascot will be a superstar down this week, but Murphy is taking the positives from it.

"Frankie told me in Dubai that he wasn't going to ride there, because he didn't think it was the right thing to do after he'd retired from British racing, and I'm kind of glad. He's giving younger guys and girls an opportunity. He'd have taken me off a few horses, and other people as well, so I'm glad he's taking that approach."

Which brings us to the Ascot squad that may help take Murphy's mind off his marked floorboards. It doesn't look as though he'll have the same kind of strength in depth as 2021, when he was leading rider (he's 16-1 this time around), but at least he's holding a licence, which he wasn't in 2022, and he has solid chances of adding to his tally of 11 winners at the meeting. 

"It's not a year when I'll have seven favourites to ride, but I'll be busy," he says, very nearly contented. "You try not to think about it but everyone's excited, whether they've got a 20-1 shot or a 2-1 shot. They all convince themselves they can win, but for me it's not so much pressure because I'm realistic about whether they can win or not. I just don't want any hard-luck stories. It'd be nicer not to hit the crossbar."

Then there's a new Australian connection to factor in. Murphy, having ridden plenty in Melbourne, got the call from Victoria trainer Henry Dwyer to ride Temple Stakes fourth Asfoora in the King Charles III Stakes, and he's also picked up the mount on Kitty Rose for Mick Price and Michael Kent in the Sandringham. For a man who has forged strong links in Japan in the past and who speaks German, French and Irish into the bargain, it is another step towards a brave new world.

'Racing needs to up its marketing budget'

The upcoming glamorous week aside, there's a deep-seated set of problems for racing to face if it is to maintain its place in the national consciousness. Murphy is far from despondent on the subject, but he turns to an unlikely source for his inspiration.

"The marketing in F1 has been incredible," he marvels. "They go around a track a hundred times, the fastest car wins and nothing happens, and nobody wants anything to happen, because if something happens someone can die, and it's extraordinary that you get so many people talking about it.

"The crowd see 50 metres of the track in the sweltering heat and are charged a couple of hundred pounds to be there, but they market the pretty drivers and they spend a fortune doing it. Maybe racing can learn from it because you have to admire it."

So what does our sport have on its side in an evermore competitive market?

"Racing is a better experience than F1 but it needs to be more affordable and we need to up our marketing budget or we'll struggle.

"Its greatest selling point is that people can go along, have a few drinks with their mates and punt a few horses, which is fine as long as they tune in every half-hour to see the horses canter past, go down to the bookies, have a fiver on, enjoy the experience; the kind of things I was lucky to be encouraged to do as a child.

"Actually, I think we have the same socks on!"

It's quintessential Oisin: a potent combination of realism, guarded optimism, deep thinking and the occasional unprompted non sequitur that brings out the grin again. He may never be quite satisfied by things that most of us would settle for in an instant, but he's happy – sort of happy – to explain why not.

Perhaps a fourth jockeys' title would bring him peace and tranquillity, but that's a story for another day.

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