Paul Hanagan: Riding high thanks to our friends in the North

The outsider is now the runaway leader in the jockeys’ title race after a season to remember Listening to Paul Hanagan describe the season that may define his career, a story about another jockey suddenly comes to mind. When Frankie Dettori rode a double in Group One races at Ascot when he was just 19 years old, he was taken up to the press room to answer questions, and, once the journalists had finished, they drifted back to their desks. No one noticed that Dettori was still there until, a few moments later, he asked quietly: “Can I go now?” It is not Hanagan’s age that stirs the memory – at 29, his teens are a fast-receding memory. But there is a definite sense of young-again innocence about him, in his bright eyes and easy smile, as he considers the real chance that he will end the season as the champion jockey.

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