Olly Murphy: 'I know I'm in a very privileged position - when I started out people were desperate for me to fall flat on my face'
Lewis Porteous meets a trainer who has had to learn the art of patience
It is a bracing but beautiful morning at Olly Murphy's Warren Chase Stables in Warwickshire and the man in charge has more reasons than most to be feeling the cold.
Back in his natural habitat for the first time after a January break in Dubai, Murphy finds memories of the luxury of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and temperatures nudging 30C fading fast as news of one frozen-off fixture after another reaches his hyperactive phone.
This is no time to feel melancholy, however. With 126 horses to be marshalled and owners to greet, the show goes on here and there is definitely a glass-half-full mentality about the place. Given Murphy's beloved Aston Villa are riding high in the Premier League at the same time the 32-year-old has elbowed his way into the top ten in the trainers' championship, why shouldn't there be?
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Published on inThe Big Read
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Copy- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'
- 'The grief hits me quite a lot - so many people think I'm really tough but I get terribly upset by things inwardly'
- 'The numbers went in the wrong direction and you're an idiot if you don't think about it - but you back what you're doing'
- 'My wife wants to know why I'm reading the sales catalogue in bed - it's relentless, but you have to be on it all the time'
- 'I know people will say they've heard it all before - but when I see Constitution Hill now, he's suddenly developed quality'
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'
- 'The grief hits me quite a lot - so many people think I'm really tough but I get terribly upset by things inwardly'
- 'The numbers went in the wrong direction and you're an idiot if you don't think about it - but you back what you're doing'
- 'My wife wants to know why I'm reading the sales catalogue in bed - it's relentless, but you have to be on it all the time'
- 'I know people will say they've heard it all before - but when I see Constitution Hill now, he's suddenly developed quality'