'Having my counsellor is a big help - I don't feel anything I bring to her is too much'

Oisin Murphy's house in Upper Lambourn is in a state of turmoil. It's having a makeover – although it already looks pretty immaculate to me – and there's furniture piled up in the most inconvenient of places, which wouldn't be so bad had Murphy not just noticed, in mid-conversation, that the people who've moved the furniture have also scratched his smart wooden floor.

The talk moves in stream-of-consciousness fashion from Royal Ascot and the tribulations of being an elite jockey (my words, not his) with too many second places to his name this season and not enough winners (his words, not mine), to those of being a homeowner with a headache.

It could have been worse; I could have turned up yesterday, when he was grappling with the aftermath of a spell of in-car projectile vomiting that may or may not have been caused by E Coli but certainly did his upholstery no favours. Whatever the issue, though, there's no doubt Murphy is a man who examines his life in minute detail, sifts the good and bad and strives to make sense of it all.