The British Flat Racing Jockey’s Championship, which concludes on Saturday, has come down to a spell-binding, grandstand finish between Oisin Murphy and William Buick.
The very tight battle seemed highly unlikely to take place just a week ago when Buick lagged a full nine winners behind Murphy, but the state of play changed significantly over the last seven days with Murphy now clinging on by a fragile two winner lead margin going into the Haydock meeting today before moving on to the grand final Ascot on Saturday.
Buick had, in fact, cut Murphy’s lead to only one when he saluted in the second race at Chelmsford on Thursday, but Murphy later fought back with a win of his own on that card.
Looking over his shoulder has not been the only drama that Murphy has had to deal with in recent times.
At the start the month Murphy was incredibly fortunate to escape serious injury when his horse bolted in the parade ring and smashed Murphy into a plastic rail. Things looked even worse at Chelmsford on Thursday when Murphy suffered a heavy fall with the rider hitting the turf hard when his mount suffered an injury at speed on the home turn.
Murphy walked away relatively unscathed from that incident, for the second time dodging a bullet both in terms of being able to maintain his physical well-being and in terms of the Championship race itself, which could well have been over in an instant had either of those episodes ended with Murphy having to be sidelined.
Even so, Murphy has to be coping with some physical bruising going into the final two days of the season on top of the mental pressure of having to defend his slender 151 to 149 winner lead over Buick.
The fact that Buick has more rides than Murphy over the next two days also doesn’t help Murphy’s cause. The title battle moves on to Haydock on Friday where Murphy has five rides, including two hot favourites, while Buick has eight rides, all of which are priced at $5 or shorter.
Buick also has one more ride than Murphy on Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday (five rides to four) where the closest and one of the most gruelling jockey championships in a long time will be decided.
While ever the professional who will give his all right to the final stride of the final race, it is hardly surprising … given how his championship lead has been cut so dramatically and the two scary incidents he has been involved in the past couple of weeks … that Murphy is not particularly enjoying the season’s climax.
Speaking to racing TV, Murphy said: “I’ve been here before, I know what it’s like. No matter what everyone says, it’s not much fun. it’s a lot of pressure. Normally the pressures are only on big days, but I’m doing my best and I’m trying to make the most of every opportunity. Saturday is obviously the best racing you can imagine. It’s a time we really should be enjoying it, but it’s tough work, race in, race out.”
