'Helping racing help its own and helping the sport along the way' - Peter Thomas reports from the Jets Richard Davis Awards

Tom Scudamore does his best to sum up the ethos of the afternoon when he says: "You're not defined by being a jockey." The thing is, it may be true when the job is going well, you're making a living and able to bow out in your own time, but for too many riders, racing is a way of life that ends too soon and can never be replicated.

Here at the Richard Davis Awards at Warwick racecourse, though, the future is ahead of us. The weighing room culture has changed to the extent there is no longer any shame in looking for a life beyond racing – even before retirement hoves alarmingly into view – and there's a palpable sense of uplift and pride as this year's winners have their stories told to a world that is genuinely pleased to see the progress that has been made on behalf of those jockeys who are far-sighted and keen enough to grasp the opportunities offered.

A lot of it is down to Jets – the Jockeys and Employment Training Scheme that since 1995 has steered its 'students' down many and varied paths – but the good things can only happen when those students are as ambitious and capable as the 2023 Jockey Club Achievement Award winner, customs broker David Parkes.

George Baker, another former jockey who knows all about second careers, remembers Parkes as a smart young Flat rider who had a few weight problems but, to borrow a racing phrase, 'saw a stride a long way out' when it came to preparing himself for a secure future. The 31-year-old from Northern Ireland was one of the few who saw the benefits that might be gleaned from Brexit by somebody who foresaw the carnage that was about to hit cross-border business.

Parkes had ridden 45 winners in his ten years in the saddle before being hit by a hip injury, but although he ended his career in 2017 "with hesitation . . . still waiting for the couple of nice horses" every rider longs for, he took full advantage of the funding and support Jets offered, studied accounting, earned a host of qualifications in customs and trade, set up his own company, DAP Shipping, in 2019, and now helps truck and car dealers negotiate the post-Brexit landscape, with a growing sideline in the shipping of thoroughbreds throughout Europe.

Jets manager Lisa Delany is full of admiration for the way he has used his transferable communication and networking skills, allied with hard work and determination, to forge a new role

"Doing your homework as a jockey is no different to going into different countries in logistics," he says, reflecting on the £3,000 grant and the trophy he received at a lunch hosted by Scudamore, another jockey moving into uncharted waters with the help of Jets. "It's not easy moving on to another career, but the support in British racing is phenomenal."

Parkes was not alone in his gratitude to both Jets and the Injured Jockeys Fund, whose Jack Berry and Oaksey Houses have been such a fertile breeding ground for the changing attitudes to career development among young jockeys.

Olivia Tubb, a successful apprentice with Jonathan Portman's Upper Lambourn yard, collected the £1,000 BHA Development Award and, having already trained in media and as a gym instructor, told it like it is: "Jets offers us all of this for nothing, so it's stupid not to utilise it."

Ryan Hatch: "We all end up with one thing in common: the love of the horse"Credit: Edward Whitaker

Ryan Hatch, meanwhile, has already spent his £2,000 in prize-money for the IJF Progress Award on a degree in psychology that he hopes will help him get into the minds of those people to whom he now offers equine training.

He admits he didn't launch himself into a new career soon enough after suffering a career-ending back injury during his time as a Cheltenham Festival-winning jockey with Nigel Twiston-Davies, but he has made hay ever since, still gaining qualifications, still helping people from such diverse circumstances as unemployment and prison to access horses and racing.

"We all end up with one thing in common: the love of the horse," he says. It's Jets in action, helping racing help its own and helping the sport along the way, honouring the memory of a young jockey whose own bright career was cut tragically short back in 1996. "Richard was just the kind of rider who would have taken full advantage of what Jets offers now," says trustee Richard Hoiles. It's a fitting way to celebrate what racing has achieved in the meantime.

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