'You can either be a drunk or a jockey' - the warning that made Paul Hanagan

Paul Hanagan has credited his long-time ally Richard Fahey with moulding him into the champion he became – thanks to a stark warning delivered early in their relationship.

Hanagan, who hung up his saddle at York last week after a stellar career that produced more than 2,000 winners and two champion jockey titles, was speaking to the Racing Post for a major interview in Sunday's newspaper in which he looked back on the added difficulties of getting to the top when born without a "silver spoon", the tough reaction from certain trainers when he got the plum job as Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum's retained rider and the daily grind of pushing for championships that means current jockeys don't know how lucky they are.

But things could all have worked out very differently had Fahey not stopped Hanagan losing the plot when his young mind was wandering.

"I owe Richard so much," he said. "I started off in town [Malton] and I started to have far too much fun. I could have gone the wrong way and Richard saw that, so he moved me out to a place called Butterwick, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing, not even a shop. I didn't drive, and all I had for company was sheep.

"They were the worst years of my life, but they made me. I remember him saying: 'You can either be a drunk or a jockey.' That's when I got my head down and worked, I started riding winners and making money, and I liked it."

Paul Hanagan with Richard Fahey (left) after Sands Of Mali won the 2017 Gimcrack Stakes at YorkCredit: Edward Whitaker

However, Hanagan regrets things didn't work out as well with Fahey at the end of his career when he tried to resume the partnership after losing the job with Sheikh Hamdan.

"I suppose the alarm bells should have started to ring straight away," he reflects. "I said I'd lost the job, and I thought he'd say, 'I'll see you next week, welcome back', but he didn't. He said I'd get a job easy.

"Looking back, I think he thought I'd stay in Newmarket, and I think now I was too hasty in coming back. Maybe he knew it had changed too much. Maybe he knew there were so many different owners with retained jockeys that it might not work for me, and I could feel that quite a few people weren't happy that I wanted to work my way back into the yard. It just wasn't the same."

Read more from Paul Hanagan in The Big Read, available in Sunday's newspaper or online for Members' Club Ultimate subscribers from 6pm on Saturday. Click here to sign up.

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