Why mature Murtagh is finally at peace with himself
To say that the 39-year-old has been to the brink and back would be an understatement. But he has matured into a man who appreciates that his talent, his family life, his mistakes and his success, have made him what he is. He is at peace with himself and is proving a stellar representative for his sport.
Today Murtagh is focusing on what he does best – winning big races. And, having chosen to ride English 2,000 Guineas third Rip Van Winkle in the Epsom Derby, he reflects on how his career is going at the all-powerful Aidan O’Brien stable.
“Things are going really well for me right now,” he says, adding: “our horses are starting to run well. We did have a lot of unexposed three-year-olds this year and a lot of them have good potential, so it is a very exciting time and Johnny Murtagh is in a great place right now.”
That was not always the case and the Meath man has had a well chronicled struggle with the demons – drink included.
“Listen, I have nothing to be ashamed of and I have no regrets. Sure I had hiccups along the way, but they made me the person I am today. Without a past, you’re nothing and if I don’t have a past, then I wouldn’t be able to help anybody. Hopefully, what I have explained about myself will help a few people along the way. My motive to speak out was never to show everyone how great I am; my motive was to get it out there and if that helped someone, then well and good.”
Murtagh would be the first to admit the part John Oxx played in his recovery, a man who not only gave him his first chance, but who also stood by him in the bad times. It is a fact he readily concedes: “John is a great man – a gentleman. He has a great work ethic and works very hard. In this, like most businesses, you only get out of it what you put in and John Oxx has put in a lot to get to where he is. He is a great family man and has great staff.
“When I joined him (straight out of the RACE school for apprentice jockeys) he was a huge help to me both as a jockey and as a person and I have nothing but the utmost respect for him.
“I was lucky I was sent out there. There were 26 of us in my class and I was told: ‘Johnny, you’re going to Oxx’s.’ There you go. I could have been sent anywhere in Ireland, but I was sent there and it is something I have been grateful for ever since. I count myself lucky, I really do.”
The Australian, Ron Quinton, was the stable jockey there back then and he was the “ultimate professional” according to the man who became his successor. “He was in his late 40’s and had been through the mill and he and John Oxx had a very professional relationship. Unfortunately for John, he then got me – 21 and mad!
“But then, I was there for 18 years – apart for a period of about six months when he let me go and I lost the job I loved. When I finally left, I left on good terms. It came about because I just couldn’t guarantee him everything was going to be OK. I had hurt my back, I wasn’t feeling well, my weight was bad and, you know, I just wasn’t sure what was going to happen. All that happened in November 2004 and I went to him and told him what I thought. I would have hated to have gone to him the following March and told him I couldn’t ride for the season.
“It was one of the first times in my life I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was very honest with him and I was very upfront. I knew he had to do what was best for John Oxx and his owners and I knew I had to live with Johnny Murtagh. I had to be honest.”
Murtagh admits that while that 2003 season was, on paper, one of his best ever, what with an Irish Derby and a King George under his belt courtesy of Alamshar, he was, in reality, “only hanging in there.”
He says he was feeling surprisingly good in himself, but maintains that when you are in constant pain, even feeling good about yourself wears thin fairly quickly. Having told Oxx of his decision in November that year, he says it was February ’05 before he began to feel well in himself again.
Stints with David Loder, James Fanshawe and Amanda Perrott gave him a good start on a new career in England, but by year two of it, he admits, he was getting homesick.
“I was going to England on a Monday, getting home on a Saturday night, riding in Ireland on the Sunday and back out again on the Monday. Then Mick Halford came in and asked me if I would ride for him and Ger Lyons asked me to ride a few for him and I remember thinking to myself that I was going to show everyone I was back in the game. I was nearly champion jockey that year, but I ran out of ammunition near the end of the season. I had proved something though. I had shown people I was willing to work hard. People will look back and say: ‘How could he have left Oxx’s?’ But the thing was that I was getting second string rides from Aidan O’Brien and, as you know, his second string horses are not second strings by most people’s standards.”
He also won the Epsom Derby for the third time in 2005 with a brilliant ride on Michael Bell’s Motivator and he says while he could have looked back and thought that leaving Oxx’s was the worst decision he ever made, he does not: “It was actually the best decision I ever made because I got back to where I should have been and there were loads of positives out of it and loads of things that happened that would not have happened had I stayed,” he comments.
Of course it was around this time the Coolmore operation ended its partnership with Jamie Spencer and Murtagh admits to disappointment when they opted for Kieren Fallon as a replacement rather than him.
“You know when you’re in line for the job and the next minute someone else gets it, of course you’re going to be disappointed. By maybe I was building myself up when I shouldn’t have. I just had to say to myself: ‘what will be will be.’ It wasn’t in my hands and I couldn’t do any more. They were after seeing how I rode, seeing what I could do, but I still didn’t get the job. In fact, looking back on it now, I’m glad I didn’t get it then, because I think that when I did get it, it was the right time- because I was ready.”
Great horses make great jockeys and I had great horses – Alamshar, Ridgewood Pearl, Sinndar – at Oxx’s and it was a great time, especially giving John his first Derby.
The Aga Khan and John Oxx stood behind me through thick and thin and with Sinndar I knew going into the race that John fancied the horse and I fancied it too. But I said to him beforehand that there was no way I was going to let him down. After winning the Derby he went on to win the Irish Derby and capped the year with the Arc. For me to do that with the horse was a way of saying ‘thank you.’ It was a great time in my career and it was payback time for those people who had invested in me.”
Even now, Murtagh is still in a state of disbelief at the turn of events: “When I went to Ballydoyle the first morning and I looked around and saw the operation, the size of it, the way it was run by Aidan O’Brien, the people he had in place and the horses we had lined up for the year ahead, I knew a lot was possible.
“I never dreamed I’d win 21 Group 1 races, but I knew something good was really possible. I could not say we’re going to do it again this year, but the aim is always to try and do better.
“Every day I give my best – be it on a maiden or a Group 1 or a on something in a little handicap down the country. Once do you that, you can go to bed at night and think to yourself: ‘Johnny you did your best.’
“But the thing is that you go down there and watch the two-year-olds being brought out and you’re told ‘that’s a Galileo, that’s a Montjeu, that’s a Giants Causeway, that’s a Saddlers Wells, that a Footstepsinthesand – it’s mind-boggling. I’d be giggling to myself just thinking about them. I drive down to Ballydoyle four days a week and I just think about how lucky I am even to get in the gate. But I do really appreciate it and I am really very grateful for the position I’m in.”
“Last year was almost beyond belief. I knew the first day I walked into Ballydoyle that it was going to be special. I had been down there riding work only once before and I didn’t realise what the place was about. However, I didn’t think it was possible to have the year we did end up having. Everything just clicked into gear and the winners just started coming and they didn’t stop. Look back at the horses I had – Duke Of Marmalade, Henrythenavigator, Yeats, Septimus, Mastercraftsman – I mean how could you go wrong?
“I realise now that I am a very lucky jockey to be in the position I’m in, but I went there with no fear and they didn’t put me under any pressure. It was simply a case of them throwing the reins at me and saying: ‘Ok, Johnny let’s see what you’re made of.’
There was no way I was going to back down and there was nothing going to get in the way of me making the most of it. Funny enough, I never felt that if I f***ed it up it was going to be the end of me. I felt much more positive. I kept telling myself: ‘This is your chance, so make sure you make the most of it.’
“Opportunities like that don’t come along very often, so you have to make the most of it and I did – I grabbed it with both hands. It is the same in all walks of life when an opportunity comes – it’s a question of how you handle it. Do you grab it, or do you quiver under the pressure? There was no way I was going to quiver.”
He says he has gelled really well with O’Brien.
“I think it is important you have good relationships with the people you work for. I knew Aidan before, but now I am working for him, I now know him and his family and I know what makes him tick. He is a real genuine man. He is the same with me as he would be with you or anyone else. There is no hidden agenda.
He is like his horses: he is solid, he is very consistent and he is genuinely a great man. Aidan has a system and he has people in place to carry it out. He misses nothing. He has 140 horses down there and he doesn’t just know everything about their breeding, he knows what each and every one of them likes and doesn’t like.
“I suppose it is the little details he picks up on that makes him stand apart from everyone else. Aidan O’Brien has raised the bar in Irish racing for everyone – including the Oxxs and the Bolgers – and everyone now knows if they want to compete they have to dig a lot deeper.
“Aidan not going to take his eye off the ball and that is why he is so good for Irish racing. He’s not disrespecting anyone; he’s just doing what he does and if you want to live with him, then you’re going to have to raise your game. Everyone says ‘Oh, sure hasn’t he the best horses.’ But that’s not the case. He makes them good.”
One of those he hopes will be great is the horse he simply calls ‘Rip’. “He was third in the English Guineas at Newmarket and I was very pleased with him and am happy to go to the Derby with him. He is a horse with a lot of speed and while there might still be questions if he’ll get a mile-and-a-half, I think that is good.
If you think they want and mile-and-a-half, they’re usually too slow for Epsom. So, he has got lots of class, lots of speed and while there might be that little question mark still, believe he told me all I wanted to know in the Guineas.
“His performance over the last furlong – despite the fact I had to switch him to the outside and lost a bit of ground to the winner (Sea The Stars) – was really impressive. When he met the rising ground at Newmarket, he stayed on really well up the hill and I think he’s a great chance.”
Of the other O’Brien runners he reckons that Fame And Glory was really impressive in the Derrinstown at Leopardstown in what was his fourth straight win.
“If he keeps improving, who knows what he will be,” he muses. “But then these horses have to keep improving from run to run, because that’s the nature of the business. It is hard on the horses, but you have to try and identify the good ones early and channel the energy into them and let the other ones come along slowly. That is what Aidan is so good at. He can pick out the ones he can go on with and then he can pick out the ones that will come along a bit behind.
“At the start of this season we had a lot of unexposed three-year-olds, but the trials have thrown up a lot of contenders and the six we have in the Derby all deserve to go to Epsom.”
Ballydoyle have a lot of older horses too – Soldier Of Fortune (“he’ll go well in the Arc, because he’ll come good towards the tail-end) Frozen Fire (“don’t read anything into the run at Chester”) and Yeats among them, but Murtagh maintains that if Yeats were to win his fourth Ascot Gold Cup, then that would be of huge satisfaction to him.
“Certainly it would because no horse has done it before. He wasn’t tuned up completely at Navan on his reappearance this season, but two-and-a-half miles on good ground at Ascot – well, you’ll see the best of him there. He’s going on eight now and he’s a bit of a character. He knows he’s the boss around the yard in the morning, he knows he’s a bit special and he get special treatment. But if he would win a fourth Gold Cup, well, that would be special for everyone. I’m already getting a bit squeaky thinking about it.”
If he’s ‘squeaky’ thinking about Yeats at Ascot, then he is positively ebullient about ‘Rip’ and does not feel that having too much choice in terms of the yard’s horse-power is a hindrance. He made his choice and is happy with it. Just like he’s happy with life right now.
