Michael Owen

I was born to score goals, I feel.

When you're a kid you just think about where you are going to be to put yourself in a position for the next scoring chance. But as you develop, you start to do things that may not catch the eye of the normal football watcher, the dropping back, the closing down.

As I've got older, I've become more intrigued about formations, tactics, I listen a lot more to the manager's team talk; as a kid, if I'm honest, I never listened.

Game by game is how I judge myself. At the end of the season, yeah, I do look back and think about how many games I've been available for, how many goals I've scored, how I've contributed. But that's what the summer's for. For now, you just look to the next one.

To breed a winner, let alone at Royal Ascot, is unbelievable. I've got four children and they all love the mother. We pat it most days and she's a lovely mare.

The difference with football is you're out on the pitch, you feel as though you can do something about it, or score a goal. But when that horse goes down to post as an owner you have no involvement whatsoever. It's a lonely old place in the stand. It's just down to man and beast.

My kids are one, three, five and eight, and we are all horsey. The kids have got their ponies and can ride. Our foundation mare is special to our hearts. She was one of my first ever horses. She was my first ever winner at Chester, which is also special, and she's just the apple of our eyes, really.

I would like to think that if I stop playing in three, four, five years time, whatever it may be, that I would still be involved in football and still have that as my profession. It is my passion and what I know.

I've always wanted to be a top footballer since I was young.

I want to have as normal a life as possible.

I don't want to pack everything into one year and then do nothing the rest of my life. I think it's important to do things bit by bit.

There are pitfalls in World Cups, there are players who can win penalties and players who get the slightest touch and go down holding their face or whatever and get someone sent off. There are all these little things and you're hoping that you're not on the wrong end of it.

As a youngster, I was considered exceptional, and in many ways that was to my detriment.

There is no doubt that I would have won more honours had I signed for Manchester United as a youngster.

I basically run on two hamstrings on my right leg and three on the other. I'm losing a third of the power.

If you look at anyone at the top of their profession, there has to be something a little bit different. You have to be driven, cold, hard and mentally tough as iron.

There's nothing quite like a World Cup.

I find it hard to say no to people.

At 18 to 20, I was probably one of the quickest things around, at the peak of my powers.

An emotion that lives with me is a sense of 'what might have been' had injuries not robbed me of my most lethal weapon - speed.

I have been very fortunate in that my career has taken me on a journey I could only have dreamed of.

I'm confident in my own ability. If that wasn't the case you might as well pack it in now. If you think too much, you start doubting yourself, doubting your quality, so you have to train yourself in a certain way.

Horses will never be my career. It's just a big passion of mine, and one that will always be there in the background, but football is my main passion and everyone knows that.

You're obviously conscious of being brash or big-headed but I always knew I was going to be a footballer when I was seven or eight. I didn't just think I wanted to be one, I knew I was going to be one. Nothing ever surprised me really.

I've got no hamstring in the middle. I'm basically running on two hamstrings on my right leg and three on the other. That injury has probably changed my whole career. I've been compromised from the age of 19.