When, and where, did Oisin Murphy ride his first domestic Group 1 winner?

Former champion apprentice and three-time champion jockey Oisin Murphy has courted his fair share of controversy since moving to Britain to join Kingsclere trainer Andrew Balding, as a 17-year-old, in October, 2012. In June, 2019, two days before Royal Ascot, he failed a breath test for alcohol at Salisbury, was stood down for the day and received a caution at a subsequent disciplinary hearing. In November, 2020, he was given a three-month suspension by the French governing body, France Galop, following a positive test for metabolites of cocaine after riding at Chantilly the previous July, although a disciplinary hearing accepted his explanation that the positive result was due to ‘environmental contamination’.

Last, but by no means least, in February, 2022, Murphy was suspended for 14 months – backdated to the previous December, when he handed in his licence to seek rehabilitation – after admitting to two further failed breath tests, one at Chester and another at Newmarket, breaching Covid protocols, misleading the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) and prejudicial conduct. Nevertheless, Murphy returned to race-riding, with a winner, in February, 2023, and currently lies second, behind William Buick, in the Flat Jockeys’ Championship, which began at the Guineas Festival on May 6.

Murphy first attracted the attention of the wider racing public in September, 2013, as a 5lb claimer, he rode a 9,260/1 four-timer, including the Ayr Gold Cup winner, Highland Colori. As far as Group 1, or Grade 1, winners are concerned, he rode two abroad before his maiden victory at the highest level on British soil. In October, 2017, he won the Prix de la Foret at Chantilly on Aclaim, trained by Martyn Meade and the E.P. Taylor Stakes at Woodbine, Canada on Blond Me, trained by Balding. The following July, in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown Park, he rode his first domestic Group 1 winner, Roaring Lion, trained by John Gosden, who edged out the 2,000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior in a driving finish.