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Always limping to jump on and off horses, Chris O'Brien is the bloke who outwardly bears more scars than most after a lifetime of riding.
He hobbles through a mounting yard and maintains the same gait back to the jockeys' room. Then out he goes again.
But O'Brien keeps turning up every other day to punch a few around, whether it be in the country or on the provincial circuit he has frequented for many years. Still riding. Still celebrating winners.
Punters who have ever seen the journeyman jockey in action must ask how O'Brien's seemingly brittle body keeps in tact? They might know now.
"I dislocated my shoulder about 12 weeks ago and I was out for [the entire month of] February," O'Brien said. "I was diving in for a swim and it was the easiest thing.
"I was pretty lucky and we had someone there who could pop it straight back in. I had it X-rayed and then they sent me off to a specialist. They said I would probably need it operated on later on in life, but at the moment I was lucky."
Dislocated shoulder while swimming? Really?
"And one of our owners [tended to it]," laughed O'Brien, whose wife Carmen Murnane trains a small string at Gosford. "They just knew how to pop shoulders back in. [But] the body is going all right."
And has had him back in the saddle after only a month out. Most professional footballers with at-your-fingertips state-of-the-art rehabilitation would be happy with a similar recovery time.
The body may have taken a few blows in recent years, but O'Brien is thankful he never had the chance to ride Hawkesbury Gold Cup hopeful Mighty Lucky in his younger days. Then it might have been in a dire state.
While Mighty Lucky's trainer Fred Cowell ties up next to Murnane most mornings, O'Brien has always taken an interest in the horse he regards as a one-time "ratbag".
And jumped at the chance when Cowell offered him the ride, culminating in a win on the final day of the Randwick carnival a fortnight ago.
"I've always watched from the sidelines basically," O'Brien said. "He had a few victories early on and dumped a fair few jockeys, especially early on when he was a two-year-old. Fred had a helluva job with him.
"Fred came and asked me [to ride him a fortnight ago] and originally I was going to Kembla. He just came and asked me what I was doing on the Saturday and I said to my manager Wayne Harris, 'get me off everything because I'm going to town to ride this'.
"Every prep he has always shown enough to suggest he's a promising horse without quite getting to the next step."
It is the next step O'Brien has struggled to forge, too. Thrust into the spotlight during the heady days of Sincero in 2011, O'Brien reckons he has struggled to attract "five or six" rides each year on metropolitan Saturday cards since.
Mighty Lucky was his first winner on a Sydney Saturday since Sincero's group 1 George Main Stakes success in 2011.
"You need the horses underneath you to perform and if they're not there you can go by the wayside," O'Brien said.
"And I don't think the horse has gone backwards. A couple of the guys have always said he goes better second-up than first-up and I don't mind that."
Mighty Lucky was listed a $9.50 chance with Ladbrokes on Friday for the Hawkesbury Gold Cup.
