Johnny Murtagh

Johnny Murtagh
Johnny Murtagh after winning the Epsom Oaks on Dancing Rain
Occupation	Jockey / trainer
Born	14 May 1970 Navan, County Meath, Ireland
Significant horses
Sinndar, Kalanisi, Choisir, Soviet Song, Henrythenavigator, Yeats, Fame And Glory, Dancing Rain

Johnny Murtagh (born 14 May 1970) is an Irish flat racing jockey and trainer from Cortown, Kells, County Meath. He has won many of the major flat races in Europe, including all the Irish Classics, all the Group 1 Races at Royal Ascot, the Epsom Derby, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes and Europe's biggest race the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. He has also been Irish flat racing Champion Jockey five times.

Murtagh was a keen amateur boxer as a young boy and was once Irish boy's under-14 boxing champion. He also came close to joining Blackburn Rovers’ youth football team.

In an RTÉ radio interview, Johnny stated that at a fight one evening in his native County Meath, a spectator advised his mother that Johnny would make a good jockey, citing his small size, weight, good balance, sense of rhythm, and courage. His mother wrote to the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) in County Kildare, a school for apprentice jockeys, and got a two-week trial for her son. After persuasion by friends, he joined. He was one of 26 successful candidates who progressed onto the RACE 10-month course.

In the same RTÉ interview, Johnny stated that he knew riding was for him as soon as he stepped into the world of horses. From the trial, he got on the ten-month training course, and within a year, he was apprenticed to John Oxx, one of Ireland’s leading trainers.