Champion jockey Oisin Murphy and snooker’s Barry Hearn
Champion jockey tells Marcus Armytage that Guineas weekend is a chance to be a role model
There will be a number of goals in Oisin Murphy’s mind when the Flat season belatedly bursts into life tomorrow at Newcastle. The most immediate will be to hit the ground running with his three rides, one of which is the unraced but well-bred filly Luck On Sunday, which was bought for €2million (£1.8million) as a yearling. Longer term, it will be to retain his title as champion jockey in what is going to be a condensed season. Along the way, he wants to ride his first Classic winner, and will have two good chances at Newmarket next weekend, with Kameko in the Qipco 2,000 Guineas on Saturday and the Irish filly Millisle in the 1,000 Guineas on Sunday.
Ambitious, professional, bright, hard-working, media savvy – attributes which apply equally to Tom Marquand, who looks like being his most serious title rival this year – the Kerry-born Murphy was never going to be satisfied with one title.
He sprung to prominence by riding a four-timer, including the feature race, at the Ayr Gold Cup meeting in the autumn of 2013. At the time, he was attached to Andrew
Balding’s Kingsclere yard, the Eton of apprentice academies, and has always been destined for the top.
The apprentice title in 2014 merely confirmed that and he looks set to spend a long time there. He is the best Flat jockey to have come along since Ryan Moore. Indeed, one day he and Marquand between them might even fill the boots which will be left, sooner or later, by Frankie Dettori as Britain’s best-known jockeys.
While some senior riders can think of nothing worse than getting involved in the slog that the title race involves, since his association with Roaring Lion propelled him into the big time proper two seasons ago, Murphy has been making a good fist of combining quality and quantity.
“I’ve won a couple of German
Classics,” says Murphy before qualifying that statement, “but they are not even Group One races. When you’re a young jockey starting out, what you dream of is, first, being champion apprentice, then riding Group One winners, then being champion jockey and then riding Classic winners. I’m 24 – I still want to do everything.
“I’ve won on three of the first five in the betting [Kameko, Military March and Threat, who has since dropped out] for the 2,000 Guineas. They’re all beauties. I can only ride one and that decision is made for me [by Qatar Racing, by whom he is retained] but I wouldn’t swap Kameko.”
That he will be going full throttle for the title is not in doubt. “I tried hard the year before last and didn’t win it [Silvestre de Sousa did], I tried hard last year and did win it and I’ll be trying hard again. It’s very important for a young jockey, not only personally but for the people supporting you. But it’s a huge mental battle – unless you don’t want it.
“I rode 1,200 horses in a nine-month period last year. It was quite rare that I came home and thought I’d love to go and ride that race again but you have to deal with things when they don’t go so well. I don’t think there’s a jockey riding who finds it easy when you go a few days and your fancied rides don’t win. It’s hard to put that behind you. You have to be self-critical.”
In many ways Murphy, who became first jockey for Sheikh Fahad Al Thani’s Qatar Racing in 2016, has the perfect job for title chasing – not so many horses that his destination is dictated to him every day, but enough good horses to take him to the smart meetings and a boss who is as keen for him to achieve as the jockey himself.
Last winter, for the second year, he spent three months in Japan, rode 64 winners, breaking all records for a foreign jockey, on a Japanese Racing Association contract, and took the Japan Cup, one of the world’s most valuable races, on Suave Richard.
“It seems quite a long time ago,” he concedes. “I haven’t achieved anything for a long time but it’s not like I’ve been sat on my hands not wanting to. I could see what was going to happen here so applied for a licence to ride in Hong Kong but the restrictions for a visa were impossible to meet. I’ve been riding out every day and on the mechanical horse but there’s nothing like riding in races. I’ll be as ready as anyone else, I’m mentally prepared – I’ve been rewatching a lot of films of races. I’ll either resume at my best, or I won’t, but it won’t be for want of trying.
“I’ve also been helping my girlfriend [show jumper Emma O’Dwyer] with her horses and cooking every evening which is different. My speciality is baked salmon, asparagus and mashed potato with loads of salt. I got bored of Netflix in week two and no one in my house is permitted to watch the news channels.”
He believes Kameko goes to the Guineas with a “massive chance” and that the turn of foot he showed in the Vertem Futurity last season off a slow pace is a powerful asset.
“Pinatubo was an outstanding two-year-old and is going to be hard to beat but we’ll give it our best shot. He earned his rating that day in Ireland but I just hope our horse has improved more over the winter.
“It would be massive to win the Guineas, it’s sponsored by the boss but I’ve had all these dreams before and been disappointed so I won’t start worrying about it yet.”
The hours spent in a car are the bane of a Flat jockeys’ life but tomorrow the long drive from Lambourn to Newcastle is going to be, for once, pleasurable. “I’m very comfortable we can adhere to the rules and protocols of racing behind closed doors,” says Murphy. “Let’s go back racing and be good role models.”