He is, by some accounts, the moodiest man on the turf, Eeyore with a whip and a hard hat. He does not give many interviews, he supposedly muttered "this is bollocks" as the leading jockeys were introduced to the crowd at Royal Ascot, and only last Sunday, he was fined €1,000 after an "altercation" with a security man at The Curragh.
Yet as Ryan Moore sat outside the weighing room at his hometown track here yesterday afternoon, fresh from riding two winners, there was little sign of the prickly jockey of popular myth. Perhaps it was the sunshine, or the knowledge that he was one step nearer to regaining the jockeys' title. Or perhaps he is just not quite so difficult or withdrawn as some would have you believe.
Moore seems to feel the sting of defeat just as clearly as the joy of success, which is perhaps not the ideal frame of mind when, at best, you will lose three times in every four. But it is the mentality of a winner too, one which made him the champion jockey in 2006 at the age of just 23, and seems sure to secure him many more.
"I'm fine talking to people after big races, but I don't want to be distracted before them," Moore says. "People always want to do interviews before big races, and before Royal Ascot and Epsom, and to me that's not the time to be doing it. All I want to do every day is to ride winners, not make mistakes, win big races on the best horses, and not let people down. That's owners, trainers, punters, even the people who do the tipping in the Racing Post. If they tip me up, I want to get it right."
The unfortunate incident at The Curragh on Irish Derby day, he says, was a disagreement "that just got a bit messy".
"The gate I was trying to get into was the gate I left by the previous night," he says. "Because I didn't have the right pass, the security guard wouldn't let me in. I asked him to get the clerk of the course and he wouldn't. There's a lot of building work going on at The Curragh and it's hard for anyone to get into the place.
"In the end, I had my overnight bag in one hand and my washbag in the other hand, and I hit his gate with my washbag. He went in and said I took a swing at him and missed him by inches, and said that I was trying to intimidate him. For a big security guard, I thought that was ridiculous, but I said to the stewards, I don't care what happens, I just want to get it out of the way before the Derby, because that's the important thing."
The Classic, in which Moore was riding Tartan Bearer, the hot favourite, did
not go according to plan either, as he became embroiled in the scrimmaging as Alessandro Volta, the mount of Johnny Murtagh, started to hang sharply left in the closing stages.
"The English Derby was the one we really wanted, and it was a big disappointment to be beaten in it, but Tartan Bearer ran well, he was just beaten by a very good one [in New Approach]," Moore says.
"In Ireland, he wasn't the same horse that ran at Epsom, and maybe the Derby had just left its mark on him. The way the winner finished, I'm not sure that I would have had an answer to him, to be honest, but I got hit side on, and I still hadn't really gone for him, I was just punching away and just about to go for my stick and set him alight. When we got hit, he got off balance, and Johnny Murtagh's horse continued to hang all the way, and I could never really gather him up and get him going again. I don't think he would have won, but you just don't know."
Moore had three winners at Royal Ascot, a meeting at which he had previously drawn a blank, but typically, it is one of the losers that sticks most in his mind.
"Three winners at Royal Ascot is a good week for anyone," he says, "but it was just a shame that Conduit got bumped on the bend [in the King Edward VII Stakes], because otherwise I think I would have got there. It cost me, and that would have made it all a lot better
