Racing demons

In Bucharest recently I encountered some Romanian proverbs. ‘Always eat the end of the bread: your mother-in-law will love you,’ said one. And, more to my liking: ‘Always empty the last drops out of a bottle into your glass: people will like you.’

Sometimes people in racing, facing the strains for our pleasure, find themselves tilting the bottle a little too often. It was sad for Timmy Murphy, for example, after his skilful, patient Grand National-winning ride on Comply or Die that his triumph was clouded by most commentators presenting it as a redemption from the months he spent in prison back in 2002 after drunken behaviour aboard an airliner.

Timmy has told the story of his one-time alcoholism in a searing autobiography so he has learnt to live with people raking over the incident. But after forswearing drink he redeemed himself long ago with his riding. Others beat it, too, such as Gold Cup-winning jockey Bobby Beasley. He even became a publican, muttering at the optics in the bar every morning, ‘You thought you were going to get me, you little bastards, but you didn’t.’

Another redemption many will hope to see this season is that of 28-year-old Robert Winston, a jockey who has had glittering success snatched away from him on one hideously painful occasion and who has occasionally done his best to hurl it away himself.

In August 2005 Robert led the jockeys’ table with 98 winners and looked sure to finish the season as champion rider. Then in a terrible fall at Ayr he smashed both his upper and lower jaw. Months of enforced idleness saw him spiral into chronic alcoholism. He was, by his own admission, ‘in a big, black hole’, drinking himself to death.