| Alan Johns has carved out something of a unique career path for himself, combining riding winners with creating amusing social media videos. Now calling time on his career after 223 winners, the Welshman is looking to enter the racing media world full time. After announcing his retirement on Luck On Sunday on 6th April, Alan’s four final rides came at Ffos Las later that day and, after three horses finishing down the field, Bumpy Evans provided the fairytale final winner. “It was such a perfect way to end it,” Alan explained, “Having announced retirement, you are sort of committed that your last ride is your last ride. A lot of jockeys ride a winner and then announce it post-race, so I committed to that being my last ride and it felt like a good wave of support there on the day.” The adage of ‘getting out in one piece’ is often thrown around when a jockey retires and Alan was something of a rarity in that he only broke one bone – his collarbone – though bangs to the head happened regularly through the middle part of his career. Bumpy Evans, his final ride, is a bit of a “worrier” and has been known to make jumping errors, “I was still taking the job very seriously up to the last ride and particularly so with him because he is more inclined than most for something to go wrong, albeit his reputation probably proceeds him a little bit and he is a very honest horse.” So, how does Alan reflect on his time as a jockey? “I feel like I’ve got a lot to be proud of in my career – I think it is a great achievement to literally go through each step, so to have a first winner, to get to start riding regularly, to ride out your claim, to become established in the weighing room, to sort of be recognised and respected – hopefully – by other jockeys and other people in the sport. “When I reflect on it in a sentence, I am happy with it because it has led me to the person I am today and I like that person. I feel like, if you take out certain aspects of it, then I wouldn’t be where I am now and in a position that I find quite exciting to be in, but, when I really delve into it more analytically and numbers-wise, I sort of would’ve enjoyed more success, I suppose, but that’s the way it is.” One of the highlights was no doubt when Alan lined up in the 2023 Grand National on board the Tim Vaughan-trained Eva’s Oskar, “That was a moment I’m proud of. I was hampered by a loose horse and that brought our race to an end, but one of the reasons I’m proud of it is, as a jockey, when you meet non-racing people, one of the first questions they ask, when they find out you’re a jockey, is have you ridden in the Grand National? So it’s nice to be able to say yes to that.” The media buzz around the big race was what opened the door to the world of social media for Alan, having previously nudged at it with humorous and often self-depreciating tweets. “We were, myself and Tim, not the usual suspects in terms of profile of trainer, so the media were slightly more inclined to talk to me and Tim than perhaps Nicholls, so we probably got over and above our share of the media at that time. “I just decided to change my mentality in interviews and I started to really engage in them. The one little thing I try and do is say something to amuse myself and, potentially, the viewer in every interview and I started doing that in all my post-race interviews. It brought about a different energy from me and I think I probably began to be seen as someone who was not shy of a camera, or probably drawn to it a little bit.” This new approach to interviews and the success of the Eva’s Oskar team social media content led to the Jockey Club approaching Alan to host their weekly ‘What You Missed This Week’ video, and he fronted the Welsh Jump Jockeys’ Derby campaign to raise money for children’s cancer charity Latch.” “Phil Bell – sort of the boss around those parts – asked me to make some promo for it and I suggested making a tongue in cheek video, which was really well-received, and probably a combination of those two – the Jockey Club videos and the Welsh Jump Jockeys’ Derby video – acted as a springboard quite quickly then to go down that route more and it flowed from there.” In the time since, Alan has become a well-known face in the industry, bringing joy to racing fans with his light-hearted content. “All through school, I would always be the person trying to make people laugh in the classroom, trying to be the one staying on the right side of the teacher while doing it. It has always been my personality so I’ve always tried to bring a sense of humour to social media.” “I think it’s surprising,” Alan admitted, “When I look back at it, when you sum up something in five minutes, it almost feels like it all flows through naturally, but, from that time, when I started doing the Jockey Club videos and the Jump Jockeys’ Derby video, it has just been a very gradual confidence building exercise where I sort of have, bit by bit, put my personality out there more and more and more.” |
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| Content with his weighing room colleagues has been particularly well-received and the jockeys have, generally, been very willing to get involved. “The thing is, most of the jockeys in the weighing room now, the majority, are probably thirty and under and they’ve grown up with social media, so they sort of get it, and engage with and participate on social media themselves as individuals. “Everybody knows that stigma of appearing or making fun of yourself or being in a funny video. I don’t think people find it embarrassing these days. Maybe a previous generation would feel like they were making a fool of themselves, whereas I think now the opposite is true. Sometimes if you can have fun and laugh at your own expense, it shows a different side to you and no one is going to take you less seriously as a jockey because of it. ” Through his content for Great British Racing and the Jockey Club, along with social media pages such as Invades and Raceday TV, Alan sees horse racing in a positive position. “I think engagement with the sport is on the up – in certain ways, it is breaking through. I think it’s another medium for people to interact or get interest in hobbies and different interests and racing can definitely capitalise on that. The sport as a whole is on its way to doing it already, I think. It is just about as accessible as any sport out there and you’ve got a huge number of participants [to engage in social media].” However, there are challenges when attracting more people to horse racing which Alan believes need to be faced. “I think one of the barriers to entry to becoming a fan is that it’s such a vastly complex sport, or rather there are so many facets to the sport that you need to know about. It’s a sport where you might have one hundred facts about the sport, but to understand, you need to know ninety of them for them all to make sense. Knowing one fact alone doesn’t really cut it, it all fits into the puzzle a bit, so you almost need to get people’s knowledge to a certain amount so it all falls into place a bit.” Raising the profile of horse racing and making the sport accessible is clearly a priority for Alan, but what is next for racing’s social media star? “I’d quite like to be on TV talking about racing – I think the dream job for me would be to get a job on ITV Racing, so I’m trying to work towards that and then the racing channels as well. Alongside that, I’m in front of the camera in that situation, but I’d like to continue pushing my social media profile and, then, probably, the third aspect is that I’ve started the process of social media management for some jockeys and maybe people in other sports, in time.” “I actually felt quite organised over the last couple of years,” Alan laughs. “I actually felt like I was ahead of the game with my work, but actually there’s nothing quite like stopping to make you think oh crikey, am I actually prepared for this?” Fans will be reassured to know Alan will still be providing content for Great British Racing, The Jockey Club and DragonBet going forwards and has found himself “saying yes to everything”, whilst expanding his social media management team. “I’m really excited to see how the next year of my life goes,” Alan muses. “Probably a lot will change and maybe it won’t feel like much has changed, but there’s a lot of unknown paths that could be taken that maybe won’t be. I just can’t quite imagine how it’s all going to go, so I just hope that I can keep the momentum going forward and not just get a little bit stuck and have a certain amount of work that then just stops coming in and then I find myself not quite at the level I want to be, wondering what else I could do. But, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?” |