Lizzie Kelly: 'It was ruining my day, talking utter rubbish about being a girl'

We're two hours into a long and wide-ranging conversation when somebody points out that it's been roughly an hour and 59 minutes since the interlinked subjects of childbirth and motherhood last got a mention. This wouldn't be at all unusual for a Racing Post interview, were it not for the fact that today's subject is Lizzie Kelly, who has just announced her retirement from the saddle on the grounds that she is expecting her first child in five months' time.

We've done food and dieting, fear and loathing, blunders and bollockings, but babies haven't had a look-in and eventually the irony is noted, prompting a belated motherly flurry from the woman who has devoted practically the whole of her 27 years on the planet to riding racehorses better than most women before or since.

"Well, I'm the oldest of four, so I have some experience with kids, and we've bought a puppy," she says, looking to her husband Ed for moral support and lifting up a cuddly donkey, made by her mum, as evidence of her commitment to the parenting cause. "Can't I just push the pram into the tack room and say I'll be back in an hour?"