'I don't need to chase rides any more. I've been there, done that, and there comes a time when you've got to let go'

Jimmy Quinn tucks into two slices of buttered toast and jam, almost finishes them, then throws the crusts in the bin. On the table, presumably for the benefit of the greedy hack and his photographer sidekick, he's strategically placed an open jar of chocolate biscuits, and now he's gone to the larder on our behalf for a multi-pack of cheese and onion Taytos ("the best crisps in the world") and a bottle of Club Orange fizzy pop ("much better than Tango"), both of which he brings back in bulk when he visits his native Ireland.

He says he would have appreciated the services of a dietician when he was younger, the way the kids in the weighing room get one now; he recalls the advice Bruce Raymond gave him back in the day: "good food goes through you and bad food stays with you"; then he nips into the garden for a ciggie.

In nobody's mind is this the breakfast of champions, but then two of us aren't 'doing light' any time soon and the other, one of the finest lightweight jockeys of the modern era, has the lean and hungry profile of a man who can still comfortably do 8st 2lb when the need arises.