The high and lows of a Hong Kong jockey

You can take a jockey who has ridden there out of Hong Kong; it’s a lot harder, I reflected, after a chat at Newbury with Neil Callan, taking Hong Kong out of the jockey. Even though this is his second season back on home territory after spending ten years in that racing pressure cooker, Neil still watches every one of the 18 races a week at Sha Tin and Happy Valley and remains grateful for what Hong Kong did for him. He went out there as a good jockey – you don’t get invited to take up a Hong Kong contract unless you are in the top echelons elsewhere – and he came back a better one.

Back in the UK, Neil Callan, the champion apprentice in 1999, had been in the top five for some years. In 2005 and 2007 (when he rode 170 winners) he was runner-up in the jockeys’ championship although, ever the realist, he adds that Jamie Spencer and Seb Sanders led him by a solid margin.