'I enjoyed the riding at Cheltenham. The rest of it? I didn't enjoy it at all'
Patrick Mullins talks to the greatest big-race jockey of his generation
The times don't change. We do.
A middle-aged man stands on the edge of the gallop looking into the distance. His knees are always slightly bent, his shoulders rolled in and his back never straight, yet he stands tall somehow. Call it presence. It's in the eyes and the grin, I think. Intelligence.
Yet he's now one of those curious things: a retired star. You're either doing it or you're not. There's no belly, however, unlike some, and the hair was always grey to be fair. The cape is gone, though; he's a superhero no more. Bruce Wayne never got grey, Clark Kent didn't age, Peter Parker didn't retire. Our heroes aren't supposed to stop, to set aside the mask, to step back. But outside of the comic books they inevitably do. I think it ages us as much as them.
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Published on 4 March 2022inInterviews
Last updated 18:10, 24 March 2022
Copy- 'There was a moment of rage - but he's a magnificent horse and it suits me that he's passed under the radar'
- When Patrick Mullins met Jack Kennedy: 'You could say I've been lucky - they're just broken bones and they heal'
- Richard Hannon: 'When you're dead and buried the only things you're remembered by are your Classic winners'
- Paul Carberry: 'I jumped up on to the rafters. It tended to be all very strait-laced in those days, but I changed that'
- 'We’re like a Sunday League team running in an FA Cup final - we’re taking on the best with an £800 homebred'
- 'There was a moment of rage - but he's a magnificent horse and it suits me that he's passed under the radar'
- When Patrick Mullins met Jack Kennedy: 'You could say I've been lucky - they're just broken bones and they heal'
- Richard Hannon: 'When you're dead and buried the only things you're remembered by are your Classic winners'
- Paul Carberry: 'I jumped up on to the rafters. It tended to be all very strait-laced in those days, but I changed that'
- 'We’re like a Sunday League team running in an FA Cup final - we’re taking on the best with an £800 homebred'