Moira McElligott is enjoying her best season to date, which has her joint leader with Maxine O'Sullivan for the lady rider title with three winners each.
"I'm very happy with the way the season is going so far."
"It's definitely been a good season for me because I don't ride that much, it's a hobby for me, it's not my profession by any means."
A Veterinary Surgeon by trade, McElligott is married to well-known handler William Murphy who has provided her with two of the three winners this season.
"It's down to Willie Murphy that I'm riding a bit more now."
McElligott believes that it could be hard to hold her position on the leaderboard, she believes that it could be difficult without the advantage of having an association with an open lightweight horse, which is something that William Murphy doesn't have at the moment.
"I wouldn't even talk about the title, somebody said that to me on Sunday, it wouldn't even be in my sights at all really, to be honest."
"We don't have any open lightweight horses, Willie tries not to keep older horses if he can, it's more buying and selling younger horses for him, a sales yard only as such."
"Anything that I ride has bypassed the sales, it's the older maiden's that have bypassed their days is what I get to ride, and I don't ever want to put the pressure on Will for me to ride anything that's for sale. You want the professionals riding those horses rather than me asking for a ride so that I would have a chance of winning a title."
Moira doesn't get the chance to ride out for anyone else, due to her work commitments as a Veterinary Surgeon.
"I don't ride out for anyone else. I work as a vet, I try to ride out in the mornings at home before I go to work, and try to fit in a bit of schooling and that throughout the week, it doesn't work out too bad as I work for myself most of the time, any of the schooling days, Will tries to work around me, and in fairness to him he tries to get me schooling every week so that I am fairly sharp by Sunday."
Moira is also a very talented boxer as an Irish Elite Champion, who represented Ireland at the European Boxing Championships.
"When I got to that level, you can't really go back once you get to elite. You're talking about probably eight weeks off work for training camps, and you're not funded as such, which isn't really sustainable."
"I would still love to be boxing, but it is full time at that level, and I'd have to sacrifice my career and my job for that."
"Riding a winner on a Sunday gives you the same adrenaline rush as when you're walking into the boxing ring."
McElligott learned to ride at the same facility as Phillip Enright did in Tralee, Co. Kerry.
"I would've done showjumping and eventing growing up, I started off in Kennedy's Equestrian Centre in Tralee, the same place where Phillip Enright would have started off."
"When I started working, I started working in an equine practice, and the practice that I started in, a lot of their clients would have been racing clients, and that's how I got into racing."
"After that, I got a mare who was very lucky for us."
"I never intended riding in races, but as soon as I started riding out, the competitive side of me broke out and I wanted to give it a go."
