Oisin (pronounced o–SHEEN) Murphy was banned for three months in November 2020 after testing positive for cocaine at a meeting in France in July. France Galop, the French governing body of racing, accepted Murphy's explanation that he had never taken cocaine himself but had tested positive through environmental contamination, having had sex the day before with a woman who was an occasional cocaine user. On 8 October 2021 he was stood down from his rides at Newmarket after failing a breath test, having been involved in a "fracas" in a Newmarket pub the previous evening. In December 2021, facing disciplinary charges brought by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) for a breach of Covid–19 travel protocols in 2020, and two failed breath tests in 2021, Murphy announced that he had temporarily relinquished his racing licence "to focus on rehabilitation". In February 2022 the BHA's disciplinary panel issued a 12–month ban.
One of Murphy's most successful partnerships has been with a horse named Alcohol Free, on which he has won the Cheveley Park Stakes (2020), the Coronation Stakes (2021) and the Sussex Stakes (2021).
© Haydn Thompson 2022