Can Some Kind Soul Paste The R.Dunwoody Interview In Today's RPost?

Richard Dunwoody: 'I can't change the past - not the moods, the rows, the self-hating, the anger or the madness'
Lee Mottershead goes inside the mind of a man who battled body and brain

On the eve of his 60th birthday, we have republished this interview from March 2022 with the legendary three-time champion jockey

Towards the end of our conversation, at around the time when it seems all the main topics have been covered and goodbyes are imminent, Richard Dunwoody builds up a fresh head of steam.

While looking out to mountains from his home in Spain, one of the greatest jockeys in jump racing history has spoken of the torment he carried through stages of his remarkable career. He has been strikingly upfront about the self-loathing, the sauna marathons, insomnia and injuries. A light has been shone on life as it was then and life as it has become.

As the job spec demanded, we have gone inside the mind of a man perfectly suited to such deep analysis. Now, however, he has something on that mind.

The three-time champion jockey won two Grand Nationals, a Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and four King George VI Chases, two of them in partnership with the legendary Desert Orchid. Until Sir Anthony McCoy usurped his total, he had won more jumps races than anyone else. One of his 1,874 British and Irish jumps victories came in the 1990 Champion Hurdle on Kribensis. Six years later he finished second in the festival's Tuesday highlight aboard 10-11 favourite Alderbrook. Dunwoody being Dunwoody, that is the one he wants to talk about.

"I blame you for this," he jokes. "Knowing we were doing the interview I spent an hour last night going over and over the race, trying to work out why I got beat and why I was so far behind over the third-last and second-last hurdles.

"For some reason I rode him much more confidently than I would ever usually have ridden a horse. I can see I didn't give him a good ride, but I was three and a half lengths down turning in and still two and a half lengths behind at the line. As well as that, compared to the previous year Alderbrook actually finished further in front of Danoli and Mysilv in 1996. I think I would have had to carry him to win that race."

From the first success in May 1983 to the last at Perth in August 1999, it was winning that mattered to the now 58-year-old. His autobiography, written with David Walsh and published when he still smarted at his injury-enforced retirement, was called Obsessed. It painted an often grim picture of the man behind the goggles. It exposed a sportsman who could achieve astonishing things with his body, yet often at the expense of his brain. The dust jacket notes informed readers its subject "had to be champion but the ambition almost destroyed him". That summary was more than backed up by the contents within.

Ten years later – by which time he had trekked to the South Pole and competed in Strictly Come Dancing – the follow-up book was published under the name, Method In My Madness. Even the author was evidently fascinated by the inner workings of his own head.

Before we start, it seems only fair to ask if he really wants to proceed?

"I'm not sure I particularly like looking back, but I know it has to be done," Dunwoody says.

"It all seems to be still in my memory, whether I like it or not. Senility hasn't completely set in. I can't change the past, not the moods, the rows, the self-hating, the anger or the madness of it all. You have to take it on board and learn from it, like any other mistakes we make in life. It all happened and it was all part of that journey to being the best jockey I could possibly be."

As we proceed, he starts to not simply question that final assertion but also backtrack on it, almost as though a re-evaluation has taken place during an expedition down memory lane.

The obvious stopping point is the 1993-94 season. Dunwoody had finished the previous campaign as champion jockey for the first time. For his title defence he switched stables, joining Martin Pipe from David Nicholson, who instead hired Adrian Maguire. What followed was the most bruising of battles between the Duke's past and present riders.

Dunwoody came out on top by 197 winners to 194 but over the course of that season he (in no particular order) rode Maguire off the track at Nottingham, won the Grand National, fell out badly with Pipe, fell out even more badly with his then wife Carol, sought help from a sports psychologist and gave himself a black eye as recrimination for being unseated from a novice chaser at Huntingdon. The horse was called Punch's Hotel.

"He was well named," says Dunwoody. "I kept asking myself why I had I made such a stupid mistake. I was supposed to be champion jockey but I had just fallen off a horse in front of the stands. In the end I didn't feel any pain I inflicted on myself. There was enough of it coming from the falls anyway."

Inner rage had erupted a few weeks earlier when he was unseated from Supreme Master at the final flight of a Newbury novice hurdle, in the process handing the prize to Maguire, whose championship lead thereby rose to 40. That Dunwoody bridged the deficit – and eventually conquered his own character demons – is extraordinary.

"Carol was absolutely fantastic and none of our problems were her fault," he stresses. "She says the one thing she remembers is me constantly using the rewind button on the VHS video machine. I would have watched something like the Supreme Master unseat 150 times, constantly asking myself, 'Why did I fall off?'

"It was crazy. I didn't allow myself to make mistakes and I couldn't cope when I did make mistakes. I went through mental torture when things hadn't gone the way I wished. I found it impossible to let it go, learn from it and move on. I was someone who felt he had to be in control but I absolutely wasn't in control. My anger profiles were unbelievably high and, at times, I was close to smashing my hand through a door.

"As I improved as a jockey there was more external pressure to perform well but I also put myself under much more pressure. When going for the championship was combined with factors like the tiredness, wasting and huge workload, I found myself in a state in which I couldn't cope with it all mentally. I don't know if there's an expression strong enough to describe how I was feeling at the time."

He was often feeling exhausted.

"One thing I've never really discussed is my sleeping wasn't good, especially before the big meetings," he reveals. "That went back to me having what felt like a really bad day at the 1988 Cheltenham Festival. I fell off a horse [Jim Thorpe] for Gordon Richards in the Arkle and then got beat on Celtic Chief when he was favourite for the Champion Hurdle. I had hardly slept a wink the night before.

"I used to get myself totally wound up in advance of the biggest days and I then couldn't sleep. The nights were interminable. It certainly affected my performance on occasions. I wasn't sleeping and I was worrying about not being able to sleep. The tiredness caused my mood to drop as well.

"I started taking sleeping tablets and would cut a Diazepam in half, but using them left me a little drowsy and not quite as on song as I should have been. Getting the balance right between not sleeping and being drowsy was a nightmare. It's not something I've ever discussed with AP because whenever I called round to see him he was often still in bed."

The parallels between Dunwoody and McCoy are impossible to miss. Each man was driven to an almost incomprehensible degree, fixated on winning above all else. They additionally shared a mutual need to wage war on their bodies, both through recovering from fractures and in maintaining a weight that nature had not intended.

"The injuries were always part of the challenge," says Dunwoody. "I broke my sternum on See More Business in the Racing Post Chase but knew I had to be back for Cheltenham. I was in intensive care on the Saturday night but got back in 13 days, which I thought was reasonable.

"You also can't underestimate how much walking away unscathed from a proper burial did for the confidence, especially when you were having a bad run, a lot of falls or getting back from an injury. At times it was almost worth four or five winners."

To secure just a single win – Cache Fleur's in the 1995 Whitbread Gold Cup – he lost 10lb in the space of 24 hours.

"You can't underestimate how much the weight and sweating contributed to the whole madness thing," he stresses. "Going around the paddock on Cache Fleur I had such bad cramp in my legs that I couldn't put my feet in the irons. That was nuts, absolutely crazy. You have to remember, though, that sweating doesn't just have a physical effect, it's a mental thing as well.

"Ironically, the one thing we haven't yet used in this house is a sauna the old owner installed. I would have been chuffed to use it while I was riding because it looks really good. It's gathering cobwebs now. I think it's going to stay that way."

A tragedy persuaded Dunwoody he could and should spend fewer hours in saunas and steaming baths. On being told that trainer Barry Kelly and his fiancee Sandra Clifford had been killed in a car crash, Dunwoody immediately returned home from a trip to Monaco.

"I got into the house at about 1am, stuck my answerphone on and the first message was from Barry," says Dunwoody. "He was calling me an idiot for getting banned and saying it at least meant I could come to the wedding. It gave me food for thought. Why was I worried about horses running around muddy fields when there was clearly so much more to life?"

A conversation with friend Ultan Guilfoyle convinced Dunwoody he could have a life and career at the same time. Just under a year earlier he took the advice of then Jockeys Association chief executive Michael Caulfield and consulted sports psychologist Peter Terry, whose recommendation he must concentrate on controlling the controllable proved invaluable. So, too, was Guilfoyle's suggestion that Dunwoody should end his uneasy association with Pipe, go freelance, stop doing light weights and spend more time riding in Ireland. He even did what many in the sport considered unthinkable. He decided to live in London.

"If I hadn't listened to Ultan I don't think I could have stuck it for much longer," Dunwoody says.

"When I was based around the Lambourn area everything was always about racing, even when you went out in the evening. Once I moved to London I was able to get a break from it. I had other things to think about and more balance to my life. It helped me to keep going.

"After I left Pipey's and the championship behind, a mistake might have really pissed me off, but I found I could deal with it much better. In fact, looking back, the book I did with David Walsh was maybe too dark. I'm not sure it really got across how much I loved those last few seasons. Being happy made the job easier."

During that period of being at peace with himself Dunwoody was no less mighty in the saddle than he ever had been.

"If I was ever to say I gave something an okay ride it would be Princeful in the 1998 Long Walk Hurdle," he says. The video of the race is well worth watching, although probably not if you happen to be McCoy, the jockey on runner-up Deano's Beeno.

"I really enjoyed riding against AP in my last four seasons," Dunwoody says. "He was the one to measure and test yourself against – and being slightly competitive I did enjoy the statistic in his Racing Post retirement pullout that said judged on close finishes it was 10-3 in my favour. It means nothing really but it's something for me to remind him about."

With searing insight, he adds: "It's true the fear of failure, the fear of making mistakes and that quest for the unachievable – to be a rider who didn't make mistakes – were all real drivers but, thinking about it, I don't believe the depressions, mental torture and self-hating did help. Over my final seasons it seems I was able to perform at a high level despite them."

It was because he was savouring his trip down the back nine that retirement hit him so hard. He suffered but then recovered and reinvented himself. Soon enough there was a new life. It was nothing to do with racing, but whether walking the length of Japan, running the North Korea marathon or doing twice-daily school runs, it has been nothing less than wonderfully fulfilling.

"The South Pole expedition is for me on a par with the 1993-94 season as an achievement," says Dunwoody.

"It was very much down to the mental approach. It was tough to lose three stone, deal with the cold and cope with the monotony of putting one foot in front of another for 48 days and over 1,100 kilometres while surrounded by snow and ice. It was also accompanied by a huge fear of failure and the fear of making a stupid mistake, like a bad fall or a tent fire. The reality, though, is once Doug Stoup and I stepped off the plane and on to the ice, failure wasn't an option."

Dunwoody now lives 40 miles north of Madrid with partner Olivia McDonald and daughter Milly. His days are filled with fascinating, satisfying, charity-supporting projects, including as a photographer.

"I've got plenty to keep me busy, and I still love sport, but I don't really follow racing nowadays," he says. "I haven't watched much for the last ten years. Declan Murphy lives in Madrid and he doesn't watch a huge amount either. Even when we're together we don't really talk about racing. I'm not sure it's a conscious thing. It's just we have other things to talk about and racing isn't very relevant here.

"I did tell the people at Milly's riding school I was a professional rider but they have no idea who I am and give me funny looks if I ever try to get involved. If I tell Milly to keep her hands down or advise her to put the bridle on a certain way she tells me to keep quiet and points out Noelia, her young 'profesora', told her to do it another way!"

Once upon a time, Dunwoody knew only one way. He would batter himself physically and mentally. As a result of that, or perhaps in spite of that, he was the best.

"It wasn't a normal life," he says. "To be at the top you couldn't be normal. I hope I've now changed a little, although Olivia would tell you the old me springs up now and again.

"What I had before was a different life, a totally different life. I would say it was a different me as well."

'I never stood up to Martin Pipe - I should have done'
Peter Scudamore and Martin Pipe were perfect for each other. Sir Anthony McCoy and Pipe formed a similarly strong union. Like Scudamore and McCoy, Richard Dunwoody was ruthlessly devoted to winning, yet it became quickly apparent he and Pipe were not a match made in heaven.

Dunwoody, who left David Nicholson for Pond House after winning the first of his three champion jockey titles, says: "The Duke was absolutely fantastic with me and we had a great relationship. It was a team. When I joined Martin I never felt I was part of a team. In the end, I resented it. I also never stood up to Martin, which I should have done.

"One incident in particular stands out. I wanted to investigate blood analysis as a way of monitoring my health, particularly given all the wasting I was doing, but I didn't have time to go to hospitals or clinics. I thought I might be able to get my blood checked at Martin's laboratory every couple of months when down there, so one morning I had a word about it with the girls in there.

"Martin immediately called me into the office and said if I went in there again I would be out of the yard. That wasn't a great start. I immediately knew where I stood."

Dunwoody adds: "I can't complain. Pipey was brilliant to me in the final few weeks of the title fight with Adrian and supported me fantastically well. I got two championships and a Grand National winner while I was working there. In some respects it drove me crazy but I don't regret taking the job."

Thank you, Tattcorner

One of the greatest. I'm sure he cringes at some jockeys today going wide the whole way for supposedly better ground, losing lengths in the process.

Most of the non jiggers go wide

He turned his back on Horseracing the Sport that made him.He went down in my book after that that.

Find it interesting that Pipey wouldn't let him into the laboratory, hmmm.......

as dunwoody would no all of us of a certain age would say whats on the post above, we can assume thats what woody wanted us to think and sending us a message, MOTORSHEAD the perfect useful idiot

Aye Dunwoody fan even.