Not just horsing around
Murphy: 'I'll ride as long as my body holds out'
By Martin Hintz

For Glen Murphy, life means horses. The 33-year-old El Paso jockey has been riding since he was 16, mostly galloping around tracks in the South and in the Upper Midwest. Hawthorne and Arlington parks in the Chicago area are also among his favorites, although a tumble in 1994 at the latter Wind City track laid him up for eight months with a broken neck. 

"The horse snapped a bone near its ankle, yet I thought I'd be able to bring him under control," said Murphy, pausing to chat between races at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Tex. — a racetrack in the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex. "But then, the other ankle snapped and I went head over heels off the horse."

Other than what he called that "inconvenience," Murphy asserted that "I love Chicago as far as tracks go. And the people are fantastic. There is great racing, with a good atmosphere and good riders."
The 114-pound, 5' 8" Murphy has broken just about every other bone in his body in addition to his neck — legs, hands, back, shoulder — while dealing with high-strung animals that weigh in from 900 to 1,400 pounds. that alone makes a lot of animal to control. "But I still feel like a kid. I'll ride as long as my body holds out," he emphasized.

"When a horse stumbles, I think 'oooohhhh, nuts,' and hope I come out okay. Sometimes you can fall and you then just tuck and roll. However, you can get run over by the other horses. And the ground is not really forgiving," Murphy pointed out wryly. "Yep, it is hard to get insurance," he added. 

So what does Murphy love about racing, despite all the danger. "It's the thrill of riding horses, winning, the competition," he explained enthusiastically, adding that he ran track and played soccer and basketball in high school but gravitated toward the horse world whenever he could. He started cleaning barns and gradually worked his way up to a groom position and on to become a gallop boy, the track worker who exercises the thoroughbreds. With this experience, he was a natural to go the next step and actually race.
After all, there was plenty of support for his decision. His dad, the late Doug Murphy, was a noted horse trainer in Texas and New Mexico and his mom, Maureen, still works in the Sunland Track offices in El Paso. Murphy has several uncles and cousins who are also jockeys. Two sisters married jockeys. 

His grandmother, a McClough who emigrated Stateside from Co. Cork in the 1920s, married a Hayhurst who was a contract steeplechase rider from England. His grandfather rode for horse fancier C.V. Whitney in New York state before he was injured and laid up for a year. With Whitney's help after a year's hospital stay, Grandpa Hayhurst took a string of mares to Colorado to begin ranching and horse breeding on his own.

"I haven't been to Ireland yet, but that's one of my goals. They really have grand racing. I'd like to try jockeying over there," Murphy said eagerly. "The Irish have stuck to horsemanship. We in the States turn to other sports but the Irish...they concentrate on racing."

For most of the year, Murphy usually travels around Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and other sites near his home "to tracks I know." His agent for two years, Sean Berquist arranges the competitions for him. "I don't have a family because I move around too much," he explained. His home base is an apartment in El Paso.

Murphy races in some 1,000 events in a year, sometimes doing five runs a day. He won about 200 events last year and is currently among the top 10 jockeys at Lone Star Park, having 260 starts toward the end of June, with 24 wins, 32 places and 29 shows. His earnings this season are $591,619. "I got off to a slow start this year but I think I'll come around, he emphasized.

Murphy gets up about 5 a.m. every day to work out with the horses. He rides from one to 10 animals each morning, saying that a pro rider needs to let the horses get to know them and that the riders need to understand their mounts. 

In addition, riding styles differ with each jockey, Murphy explained, saying that "some riders are aggressive, others show more finesse." 

He tumbles into bed between 11 p.m. and midnight, rarely going out to party because he regularly races at night. "You can become mentally fatigued and make mistakes while on a horse, so you really have to concentrate on what you are doing," he pointed out. "This is a business where you have to put in 100% every day."

Occasionally, however, the jockeys do get out to a bar to relax over a few beers "We can be friends but when that door opens and we go out onto the paddock, each of us is out to win," he said.

Murphy has noted many changes in his years as a rider, citing the increasing number of women jockeys as one example. "Horses are also getting younger. Before, some could have been eight years old and still racing. Now a 5-year-old seems really old."

It's often hard to take off time from the track, whether due to injuries or for a vacation, Murphy explained. "You are always at work, there is never a lot of time to slow down. There is always somebody hungrier than you ready to move up."

After his riding career winds down, Murphy said he might take up training or work in track management. "I'll have to do some soul searching when I retire." 

Until then, it's back in the saddle again.