Andrew Thornton

Hello, Andrew, how are you? Hello, Small Talk. I'm very good thank you.

You must be a bit gutted about missing Cheltenham this year?[Considerably chipper] Understatement of the year, Small Talk. [Almost happily] I'm devastated, absolutely devastated. It's just one of those things.

Did Cheltenham flash through your mind when you suffered your injury [A dislocated shoulder in a fall at Cheltenham last month]? Without a shadow of a doubt, as soon as I hit the floor. I felt my right arm, well, I was holding my arm trying to keep it in place, it was dangling. As soon as I saw that I thought "That's Cheltenham". The first thing wasn't my well-being - the first thing that flashed through my mind was Cheltenham.

So how do you deal with that sort of disappointment? Put your head in the oven? No, there is a bigger picture. There's a trainer I work for, Robert Alner, who suffered a terrible car crash three months ago. It puts everything into perspective. My injury wasn't life-threatening. I'm going to miss Cheltenham, but there's a bigger picture.

So what will you be doing today? Presumably you won't be on the golf course if your arm is hanging off?Yeah, my swing has gone to pot. I'll be at Cheltenham. Some jockeys would prefer to hide away, but I'll be there and I'll enjoy it. Life's too short.

Now, Tony McCoy's riding winners at the Festival six weeks after cracking vertebrae in his back. Is he insane? It probably helps actually. Like me, the first thing that'll have come on his mind when he suffered the injury would've been the Cheltenham Festival. He's literally been standing in a freezer at -60C for 30 seconds at a time, then going through a door and into another freezer at -130C for two and a half minutes. He's been burnt in places you wouldn't want to get burnt. And he's gone through it so he can get fit for Cheltenham.

You've had a few injuries yourself over the years, so what's been your favourite A&E department? My favourite? Probably the last one I went to - St Peter's. I ended up coming from Kempton in an ambulance, flying along the motorway at 90mph, I'm smelling gas and air and taking it in and suddenly smelt something that wasn't quite right. The ambulance broke down, the turbo had blown doing 90. I was taken out and put on the hard shoulder, waiting for another ambulance. My colleagues were coming past me in their cars going home honking their horns because they could see a jockey on a hard shoulder. I've got to transfer from one ambulance to another, get off one bed onto another bed, bearing in mind I had a dislocated shoulder. The ambulance driver said to me: "What a rotten day I've had."

Now, your nicknames, as far as we can tell, are Blindman and Lensio. Were you at the back of the queue when they were being handed out? I think Lensio is quite good, really, though I don't know about Blindman. Lensio I got from Richard Phillips, a trainer who managed our football team. It was Italia 90 and we all got named as Italian players, so I was Lensio, because I wear contacts.

Ever had any strange requests from racing fans? Strange requests? Like signing a part of your body you wouldn't normally sign?

Yeah, or asking you to send the pants that you've been riding in...[Laughing] I tell you what, you wouldn't want my pants after I've been riding in them.

You often hear that jockeys are the toughest of sportsmen, but who's the hardest man in the weighing room? Gosh - there's a lot of people who are very hard. One to come back to though is Tony McCoy. You're supposed to have 14 weeks off for a cracked vertebrae. He's back in half the time. I came back from a broken jaw last year after 23 days - we are slightly mad.

What's your favourite film? Pretty Woman.

[Small Talk just manages to stifle a chuckle] Who would play you in a film of your life?[Fairly swiftly] Robert Carlyle.

Who'd win a fight between a lion and a tiger? A lion.

Any particular reason?[In a brilliant, almost David Brentish way] Oh, I don't know, just ... quickfire questions.

What would you put in room 101? What would I bin? Scales.

But fish need them!The jockey's scales.

Ah. Can you tell us a joke?A clean one?

Not necessarily[Umming and aahing ] ... That's a tough question ... [more umming, a little aahing] ... I'll have to skip that one.

And finally, Small Talk's got 50p to stick on the Gold Cup. Who's going to win it?I've always been a big Denman fan. I personally think that Kauto Star won't get past him.

· The Cheltenham Festival will be shown on Channel 4, with a rerun incorporated within Channel 4 News on Friday March 14 at 7.30pm.