Paul Townend: ‘When the Tour de France came to Ireland, I was on my bicycle. Watching the All-Ireland, I was going to be a hurler. But I always came back to racing’

For jockey Paul Townend, nothing will ever match the thrill of horse racing, except maybe a famous golf comeback, or a controversial Formula One final… Here, he shares three of his greatest sporting memories

Paul Townend. Photo: The Jockey Club

I still remember how I felt watching Frankie Dettori’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ at Ascot Racecourse on September 28, 1996.

I was always interested in racing, but watching Dettori ride all seven winners at the British Festival of Racing that year, you knew that there was something really special happening here. It’s some feat, and I don’t think it’d ever been done before. It turned Dettori into the ‘public jockey’. He became a crossover personality, a household name and it brought him fame outside of the racing bubble.