'It turns out pedigree can be as important in a racing writer as in the horses'

They don't know how lucky they are. Hollie Doyle? Brian Hughes? That could have been me but for a cruel twist of fate.

What do you need to be a top jockey? I could do the weight, I've never been afraid of hard work and I’m a world champion at getting up early.

I will happily drive to Hamilton or Huntingdon, I can read a race and anyone who ever read my analysis in the results section will be aware that, ahem, I clearly know all there is to know about tactics.

Alas, I could so easily have been picking up one of the jockeys' prizes at the HWPA Derby Awards had it not been for one little detail: a complete lack of any riding ability whatsoever.

Not a sausage. Picture Jacob Rees-Mogg attempting to master a Harley-Davidson, although with rather less style and panache.

Which is (one of the reasons) why my name appears in bylines rather than headlines.

I have so many people to thank for the fact I will now be billed as Racing Writer of the Year. There are a whole host at Timeform, the Press Association and here at the Post, and not least my wife Em and youngest daughter Rosa, who put up with living in a house where the feature race at Auteuil counts as compulsive Sunday afternoon viewing.

But I've always thought there are three things you need in this job. A passion for your sport; a burning desire to find the right words to describe it; and utter integrity – so that people trust you enough to talk to you and readers trust the words that you write.

Now, none is keener on sport than my father Eddie, who was teaching me how to bowl leg breaks in the back garden almost as soon as I could walk.

He has a passion for language and I've rarely seen him prouder than the day I beat him to finishing the Times crossword for the first time.

And he's honesty personified – nobody I know has ever been more likely to send back a bill in a restaurant because he’d been undercharged.

It turns out that pedigree can be as important in a racing writer as in the horses he writes about. And I've actually been extraordinarily lucky after all. Thanks, Dad.

Read these articles by award-winning writer David Carr:

The race with no name that ended up becoming a Classic part of sporting history

Harriet Bethell: 'You use a knife and fork all your life but now I struggle - it's unbearable'

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