Oisin Murphy turns to counselling amid demands as champion jockey

Oisin Murphy has turned the race for the 2024 Flat riders’ title into a procession and will be crowned as the UK’s champion jockey for the fourth time at Ascot on Saturday, but the Irishman seemed to suggest on Thursday that the demands of securing the title in possibly “the most competitive weighing room in the world” could rule out a challenge for a fifth championship next year.

Murphy has taken 744 rides during the current campaign, at least 100 more than any other UK rider, while a 22% strike-rate – the highest of any jockey in the top 20 in the table – had taken him to 162 winners before racing on Thursday, 54 in front of the second-placed rider, Rossa Ryan.

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His stats are phenomenal, and it has been, on the face of it, a comfortable, almost freewheeling success. Murphy’s latest championship, though, is also his first since receiving a 14-month suspension in December 2021, having twice failed a pre-racing breath test for alcohol and also misled the British Horseracing Authority over a trip abroad which breached Covid restrictions in 2020.

Murphy is an intensely thoughtful and analytical rider, who assesses his own performances and the form of top-level and day-to-day racing in granular detail. He has also spoken in the past about his struggles with alcohol addiction, is still required to undergo regular testing and said on Thursday that he also has counselling twice a week to help ease the pressure of riding at the highest level.

“Just this morning, I had counselling, and I have that twice a week, and that’s been going on since October 2021,” Murphy said, at a media event for Saturday’s Champions Day at Ascot. “That’s definitely a huge help, and important to me.

“When I was suspended, apart from riding out [in the morning], I had a lot of free time, and it gave me a chance, maybe for the first time in my adult life, to just relax and take a deep breath.

“When things have got stressful this year and I’ve had a few days of not winning races, I’ve been able to fall back on that time away. It adds perspective to realise that I’m very lucky to be healthy and back riding at such a high level, and it’s not the end of the world if I go a few days when I haven’t been successful.”

A successful defence next year would see Murphy equal Willie Carson’s record of five titles, with only Pat Eddery (11) and Kieren Fallon (six) still ahead of him over the last half-century.

His commitment to next year’s championship race was hardly emphatic, however, and it may be that regaining the title after his long, enforced absence will be enough, for now at least.

“I haven’t really looked past this year, to be honest,” he said. “I haven’t set myself another goal of trying to regain the championship next year and I genuinely feel that because the English weighing room is so full of stars, you really have to be committed to it before the flagfall, and be very certain that it is your goal.

“I think it’s one of the most competitive, if not the most competitive weighing room in the world. There are so many Group One-winning jockeys and many of them are quite young, ambitious and hungry. Lester [Piggott], Pat and Kieren, it took incredible hunger and work ethic to achieve that so many times.”

Murphy sees Ryan, who recently recorded the biggest win of his career aboard Bluestocking in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe , as a likely title contender next year, and may turn his attention instead to increasing his tally of Group One wins.

“There are many races I haven’t won,” he said. “How far am I through my career? I don’t really know, but I don’t think I’ll be riding into my fifties, so I need to be successful while I can. There are two standouts, the Arc and the Derby, and they both are equally important to me.”

Relentless attention to the detail and nuances of race-riding has been a hallmark of Murphy’s career from an early stage. Who else but Murphy himself, for instance, would have noticed an odd blip on his record at the mid-point of the season?

“My strike-rate on the round course at Sandown was very poor the first half of the meetings there,” he said. “All of a sudden, the last few times I’ve been at Sandown, it just seemed to click.

“You could say that’s circumstance, but I also feel it comes down to confidence and trusting one’s intuition. When you can do that, and it’s something you can’t force, you give yourself a better chance of getting a good result.”