THE OTHER RETIRING CHAMP

Nick Townsend talks to dual champion jockey Paul Hanagan who has come a long way from his Warrington roots

- Nick Townsend

It was as he strode the course at the Knavesmire ahead of his one ride of the day, and his last after 26 years in the saddle, during the Ebor meeting that the reality of the moment struck Paul Hanagan hard.

The tears began to flow, and they were not just those of the man who came from nowhere to ascend to the summit of his sport.

"From day one I've always gone and walked the track and tried to see where the best ground is," he recalls. "This was a day when I had my two boys there and my wife who'd been with me more or less from the start, and my parents, my agent, everyone who'd been with me for so long. Also, don't forget, my last ride was for Richard Fahey which was pretty special. It was walking the track that really started me off and realising this would be for the last time. It was very emotional. I had to apologise to everyone I spoke to because I ended up having everyone in tears. There were just so many emotions going on."

Significantly, though, they did not include a scintilla of regret. He knew his time had come. There would be no coming back for the classic-winning, two-time champion who for five years was first jockey to Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum.

"I can guarantee it was the right time," he reflects. "For many sportsmen, it can be very difficult to say when the time is right. But I kind of knew deep down it was the right decision.

That final ride at the Knavesmire, a course on which he had recorded a remarkable 95 winners, had been on Fahey's Wootton'Sun, a son, coincidentally, of his first Group 1 victor Wootton Bassett nearly 13 years ago.

There was to be no perfect denouement, however. The pair were unplaced. Three weeks on from that day, he confesses with a self-deprecating laugh: "I felt very old getting on Wootton Bassett's son for that last ride! I felt my age, I can tell you."