Timmy Murphy: still early starts, but now I'm not in a bath two hours every day

As a man driven to the brink by the racing lifestyle and finally forced into retirement by its constant, unyielding demands, Timmy Murphy might have been expected to distance himself from the game for a while. No more early starts, stay off the motorways and, as the old adage goes, never work with children or animals.

So it comes as a small surprise to hear the former top-flight jockey outlining his new routine, four months on from the "life-changing" end of the old routine.

"I'll go into Richard Hannon's yard first thing and ride three or four," he explains, "then stop off at Emma Lavelle's on the way home and ride three more, then it's back to my little farm in Chedworth, near Cirencester, where I've got a few cattle, a few sheep and about 20 horses through the summer that I do when I get back.