Paul Hanagan wins Flat jockeys' championship
Rarely can a man have been so happy at riding a loser.
When Paul Hanagan won the opening race of the Flat season at Doncaster in March few rated his chances of staying there once the major battalions got into top gear.
But he stayed there, defying all-comers and started the final day back on Town Moor already crowned as the c**k of the North, the award for the leading northern jockey of the season. And he ended the day as the first northern-based rider to win the jockeys’ championship since Kevin Darley in 2000.
Hanagan had spent the week swapping winners with Richard Hughes, clocking up the miles and often riding at two meetings a day through the final weeks of what became an enthralling denouement to the season.
He arrived at Doncaster with a two-win lead over Hughes and by the time the pair had both drawn a blank in the first five races on the card, Hanagan was guaranteed at least a share of the title that both jockeys had striven so hard for because Hughes needed to win both of the next two races to claim a tie.
And Hanagan was finally declared the outright champion for 2010 when Times Up, ridden by Dane O’Neill for John Dunlop, won the totesport.com November Handicap.
For once it was an also-ran who took the plaudits as the crowd cheered Hanagan as he came back on Tepmokea, who had been leading until fading in the final quarter-mile. Hanagan cuts a quiet figure and there were no great displays of euphoria. Instead there were heartfelt thanks for those close to him and generous words for the man he may have defeated but for whom he has the upmost respect.
“I’m dumbstruck to be honest,” were his first words as champion jockey. “I’d be here all day with the amount of people I’d have to thank. But they know who they are.
“I’ve been in front from day one and was I was living the last week out of a suitcase, down at Kempton and Lingfield all the time - it was a tough week. I think it’ll take a while to sink in but I’d also like to say what an absolute gentleman Richard Hughes has been.
“I know how hard he’s worked. I had a lot of respect for him before but I’ve got even more now.”
As Hanagan received the trophy Hughes joined in the applause and reflected on an effort that, while unavailing, had showed that he is far more than a jockey for the glamour days. “I’m delighted for Paul,” he said, without a trace of rancour of public relations spin. “It wasn’t to be.
Hughes had given up riding for the week preceding Glorious Goodwood, because he feared incurring a ban that would have ruled him out of that fixture. His abstinence was rewarded with nine winners at the fixture and since then he had been making remorseless progress until picking up a total of seven days of suspension at a Saturday night meeting on October 2nd.
“I did give it a good go – my agent did a great job - and I think I rode 23 winners in the last 10 days I rode. That’s a feat in itself but take nothing away from Paul, he led from the start and he deserves it. The suspension didn’t help but I’m not complaining – you break the rules and you get punished. The year’s had its ups and downs and most of my year’s been up.”
Hughes had given up the ride on Paco Boy in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs to pursue the title dream to the end but there was no bitterness about the decision that, now, meant he had missed out on one of the biggest meetings in the world but without the prize that he had forsaken it for as compensation. “I didn’t want to wonder for the rest of my life ‘would I have done it?’.”
He did not, but lost nothing in defeat. Sometimes champions are about more than titles.
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