Not all jockeys are fortunate enough to choose when they leave the Weighing Room but thanks to the Injured Jockeys Fund, they have an excellent chance to be equipped for the next chapter of their lives when that moment arrives.
In an ideal world Daryl Jacob would still be on the final lap of his illustrious career, but a string of injuries influenced him to bring down the final curtain on his jockey life at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting 24 hours after he had won the Grade One Faugheen Novice Chase on Impaire Et Passe owned by long-time allies Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.
But there was no chance that Jacob was going to absent from the racing stage for long.
He will both advise and represent Munir and Souede and has also embarked on a new media career which has already seen him make appearances on Racing TV.
Retirement can be a daunting change of gear for a rider, but Jacob has put in new foundations thanks to media training sessions provided by the Jockeys Education Training Scheme (JETS) which is 50 per cent funded by the Injured Jockeys Fund.
Jacob said: ‘‘I am very good friends with Oli Bell, Ed Chamberlin, Alice Plunkett and Rishi Persad. I have always enjoyed watching them and admired how good they are at what they do.
‘‘I became fascinated by it all. It is something that I love doing but it is a bit different from riding horses around a field!
‘‘It takes time to bed in and say the right things at the right time, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
‘‘Thanks to JETS I had training sessions with Ed, Richard Hoiles and Lydia Hislop. It was fascinating and made me even keener to try to go down that path.
‘‘We are very lucky in our profession to have something like JETS which allows us to broaden our horizons and be more aware the opportunities out there.
‘‘If we didn’t have it, it would be very difficult to have a second career.’’
Looking from the outside, it may seem obvious that a jockey should plan for the future with the average age of a professional rider’s retirement being 35.
But the demands of the profession inevitably mean many jockeys only start to think about their options at the latter stages of their time in the Weighing Room.
JETS now has 1,200 candidates registered on its database who are eligible for ongoing career development support and receives over 130 applications a year for training grants.
Jacob said ‘‘As jockeys you are in your own little bubble. You are looking forward and only considering what happens today or tomorrow. When you are young, all you want to do is ride winners and go racing. You are not thinking of 10 or 15 years down the line.’’
The IJF, through JETS, has played a part in the future for Jacob but it had always been there for the jockey during the more difficult moments of a 25-year career which delivered 31 grade one wins, some magical moments thanks to horses like Bristol De Mai, L’Ami Serge and Top Notch and the dramatic victory by a nose in the 2012 Grand National on Neptune Collonges.
Jacob certainly put his body on the line. A fall at Newbury in March last year sidelined him for over six months, breaking his collarbone and doing some serious damage to the ball and socket shoulder joint.
Days after his return and shortly after riding the 1,000th winner of his career, Jacob suffered another broken collarbone during a freak accident while schooling for Irish trainer Henry De Bromhead.
Probably the most dramatic fall Jacob endured was on the final day of the 2012 Cheltenham Festival. Just over half an hour after he had won the County Hurdle on Lac Fontana, Port Melon, his mount for Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, spooked on the way to the start and became uncontrollable.
Careering into the running rail, the gelding collided with a TV camera, flinging Jacob to floor and fracturing his left leg, knee and elbow.
Reflecting on the incidents, Jacob said: ‘‘Oaksey House became my second home! Rehab and recovery can be very tough.
‘‘I needed Oaksey House and the Injured Jockeys Fund and the characters in there to really see me through the far side of it because I am not going to lie, there were plenty of grey and dark days.
‘‘The Newbury fall was a tough pill to swallow because I was only four away from riding 1,000 winners at the time. That was something that I really wanted to achieve.’’
The treatment at Oaksey House was led by Sport Therapist and Fitness Coach Rob Treviss but Jacob said the overall ambience at the centre also works positively for a rider.
He added: ‘‘I had a really great team around me at Oaksey House and they guided me through it all.
‘Rob would have been the person I saw most days, but it was also about his personality and that of the other personnel in there, from reception to the cleaning ladies as well the physios and gym team.
‘‘They are full of energy. They are there to help us and they give that light at the end of the tunnel that we, as professional athletes, sometimes don’t see. They always push you to strive to get better and do the right work. They push you but in the right way.
‘‘The IJF is an unbelievable charity, and we are very lucky it is funded the way it is by very generous people. It is nice we are appreciated and looked after. It is great people realise what a dangerous sport this is and are very generous with their donations.’’