Timmy Murphy

Timothy James Murphy (born 20 August 1974 in County Kildare, Ireland), known as Timmy Murphy, is a retired Irish jockey who competed mostly in National Hunt racing.

Murphy was born on 20 August 1974 on Newberry Stud near Kilcullen where his father, former point-to-point jockey James Murphy, was stud groom.

He grew up on the stud farm with brother Brian and learnt to ride as a young child.

He went hunting and competed in gymkhanas and pony racing with his pony, Bluebell.

At the age of fourteen he started riding out for trainer Noel Chance on the Curragh at weekends and during school holidays and began full-time work at the yard on leaving school shortly before his sixteenth birthday.

He moved to the yard of trainer Dermot Weld and then to that of Declan Gillespie, but he was sacked from both yards and, apart from riding in a bumper and a point-to-point on horses owned by his father, had yet to ride on a racecourse.

It was when he was working for trainer Mick Halford that he started to get rides with an amateur licence, winning his first point-to-point in 1993 on Gayloire at Kilmuckridge.

After a stint with Michael Hourigan in Patrickswell, which brought in more point-to-point winners and a first bumper winner with The Real Article at Puchestown in 1994, Murphy moved to England in 1995.

He turned professional later that year while working at the yard of trainer Kim Bailey in Lambourn, Berkshire.

Murphy rode 26 winners during his first season in England.

In late 1996 he lost his job with Bailey, due to his drinking which left him unable to get up in the morning.

He rode as a freelance for the rest of the 1996/97 season, riding 28 winners including his first Cheltenham Festival winner in March 1997 on Terao in the Mildmay of Flete Challenge Cup.

He had eight winners at the Cheltenham Festival, the first in 1997 and the last in 2009.

He recorded his 1000th win in Britain in 2010.

At the beginning of the 1997/98 season he was offered the job of first stable jockey to trainer Paul Nicholls.

The job involved only occasional work riding in the mornings, so Murphy's timekeeping was not a problem.

He rode 60 winners that season, in spite of a total of 52 days' suspension for use of the whip, but lost his job in November 1998, due mainly to his lack of communication with owners.

He was soon offered a job riding for owner Wally Sturt, whose horses were trained by Jim Old, and rode his second Cheltenham Festival winner in 1999 on Sturt's Sir Talbot in the Vincent O'Brien County Hurdle.

He finished the season on 73 winners.

The following two seasons, 1999/2000 and 2000/01, Murphy was again riding freelance, and his tally of winners went down slightly.

In November 1999 he won the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury on Ever Blessed for trainer Mark Pitman.

He won the Irish Grand National on Davids Lad in 2001, and the Scottish Grand National on Merigo in 2010 and 2012.

In April 2001 Murphy rode Smarty, trained by Mark Pitman, into second place in the Grand National.

The race is remembered for the atrocious wet and muddy conditions in which it was run and for a pile-up caused by a loose horse at the Canal Turn on the first circuit.

Only two horses, Smarty and winner Red Marauder, finished unhindered, with two more finishing after being remounted.

In May 2001 he won the Irish Grand National on Davids Lad.

That summer Nicholls asked him to return to his yard at Ditcheat as stable jockey and the 2001/02 was Murphy's most successful to date, with 98 winners by mid-April.

He overcame problems with alcohol, which had led to a prison sentence after a drunken incident on a plane in 2002, to resume a successful career and win the 2005 jump jockey of the year Lester Award.

In April 2002 Murphy rode the Nicholls-trained Cenkos into fifth place in the Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan.

On the flight home, Murphy became very drunk and put his hand up the skirt of a cabin crew member.

The police were waiting for him at Heathrow.

In July 2002 he pleaded guilty to being drunk on an aeroplane and to sexual assault at Isleworh Crown Court and was sentenced to six months in prison.

In the meantime he had spent five months in The Priory, Southampton, to address his problems with alcohol.

After his release from Wormwood Scrubs, Murphy went to Ireland and spent a few weeks with trainer Michael Hourigan before returning to race riding.

It was Hourigan's horse Beef Or Salmon who provided Murphy with the victories he needed to rebuild his career, winning the Ericsson Chase in December 2002 and the Irish Gold Cup in February 2003.

Murphy rode Beef Or Salmon in fifteen races for seven wins, including five Grade 1s.

Murphy rode two winners at the 2004 Cheltenham Festival: Tikram in the Mildmay of Flete Challenge Cup and Creon in the Pertemps Final.

In May 2004 Murphy was signed as retained rider for Martin Pipe's major owner David Johnson.

A multiple Grade 1-winning rider, he is best known for his victory on Comply or Die in the 2008 Grand National.

Following an injury in a fall in 2010 he was unable to regain his licence to ride over jumps and switched codes, riding on the flat from 2015 until 2018, when he retired from race riding.