‘I’d ride out probably still drunk’: an interview with champion jockey Oisín Murphy

Oisin Murphy is seen as a bad boy of flat racing. He’s one of the best riders in the world but he keeps getting into trouble. He’s been banned from racing for 14 months for breaching coronovirus protocols by going to Mykonos and he failed two alcohol tests last year. 

Oisin is now taking some time, as he puts it, to reflect. This year he’s at Royal Ascot without his riding boots for the first time in his career. 

I find him in the Parade Ring. A horse obsessive, he immediately starts talking me through the details as the jockeys begin to mount. ‘It’s a very warm day so it’s natural for the horses to sweat,’ he says in his thick Irish accent, pointing to the foam that is beginning to appear under the saddlecloths, ‘but it’s so important to keep them as calm as possible. You’d get a sedated elephant wound up before a race like this, especially with everything that’s going on.