IT was towards the end of July 2018 that David Egan was at something of a quandary. At the time, he was prominent in the British apprentice jockeys table, vying for the lead with Jason Watson, the pair of them riding plenty of winners.

Egan had won that championship the year before, getting the better of a titanic tussle with Kieran Shoemark which went right down to the last day of the season, when the pair went up to Catterick.

Egan travelled up to the north of Yorkshire with his father John and his grandfather Kieran and though he rode no winners, neither did Shoemark, and so he went back down south as apprentice champion. That was a brilliant day.

Winning a second apprentice title had a nice ring to it, but the situation didn’t feel right to Egan so he sat down with his father and everyone else close to him to talk about going professional.

“It was a big call to make,” Egan reflects. “I just felt that I’d won the apprentice title and I had started to get higher-class rides. In my own head, I didn’t want to be classed as an apprentice when I wasn’t claiming.

“I wanted to go for the better rides, the better class of horse, rather than going anywhere to get as many rides as I can. Like, I was giving up a good ride somewhere in order to go and ride five or six at Wolverhampton or Lingfield. Not that I don’t enjoy going to those tracks but I just thought it was the right decision and I think it paid off.”

It didn’t take long to pay off. Egan’s decision to go professional, which naturally ruled him out of the apprentice title race, was seen at the time as a signal of intent and his first ride as a fully fledged pro came in Group 2 Lillie Langtry Stakes at Goodwood. He won that race on a filly called Pilaster for his boss Roger Varian and he hasn’t looked back since.

The 21-year-old finished out the year with 71 winners. In his first full year as a pro last year, he rode 77 winners. He has 30 winners on the board so far in this truncated season, with Covid protocols lowering the number of rides jockeys have been able to take. Still, his strike rate of 14% is good, stronger than his two previous seasons, so that indicates that he has maintained his progress.

More significantly, he says the class of horse he is riding is better. One of the immediate positives of turning professional was that he was signed up on a retainer for prominent owner Prince Faisal and through that agreement he has developed a relationship, somewhat bittersweet this term, with top-class three-year-colt Mishriff.

Egan rode the son of Make Believe to win his maiden at Nottingham by 10 lengths last season and he rode him in Riyadh to finish second in the Saudi Derby and then again to win a listed contest at Newmarket. But Covid restrictions prevented him from travelling to France to ride Mishriff in the Prix du Jockey Club and he was suspended for the colt’s latest win in Deauville.

“It was unfortunate to miss the French Derby,” Egan says. “It’s just the way it worked out this year. But I was very happy for Prince Faisal. With the opportunities he has given me, I always like to see him do well, even with the horses I’m not riding. It was great for him to win a race like that. He bred Mishriff and he obviously owned his sire Make Believe as well so it was a real blue blood thing for him.

Mishriff and David Egan winning at Newmarket earlier this season \Healy Racing

“Mishriff’s plans are not 100% and what he does is up to Mr Gosden to decide. All going well, if no suspensions catch me like the last day, even if I had to go France, I would happily give up the two weeks quarantine, or whatever you have to do, to go and ride him because he is a top-class horse.

“He’s very versatile, he has a good cruising speed and he is able to quicken and sustain his challenge all the way to the line which is what you need for a good horse. He has got all the attributes you want.”

Steeped

David Egan comes from a family steeped in racing. His father John has ridden winners all over the world. His mother Sandra Hughes is an Irish Grand National-winning trainer. His uncle Richard is a multiple champion jockey and now a well established trainer. His grandfather Dessie Hughes rode and trained multiple Cheltenham Festival-winning horses.

“I was in a very lucky position growing up because nearly everyone in my family has something to do with horses,” Egan says. “My grandfather (Dessie) had a big effect on me. I was nine years old when I moved back to Ireland. From around the age of 13, I started riding a couple of the jumpers out the back and slowly made my way out on to the Curragh. Of course I got ran away with a few times and fell off a few times more.

“It was around that time that my grandfather told me that I was small enough to be a flat jockey and that I need to be in a flat yard. He told me to go to Willie McCreery down the road.

“That was definitely good advice and I owe a lot to Willie because he gave me a chance to start riding work and that really got my eye into wanting to be a jockey.

“At around the same time I started pony racing. I was given a two-year-old thoroughbred by Aussie Rules called Sydney Harbour. He was very small. I broke him, got him going but when ran him first he got tailed off.

“I put him away for the winter then and managed to win on him the next year at Ballyconneely. It was me, my father and my brother who went up together with the horse box and we brought home a winner. I’d say that was one of the best days of my life.”

It was Egan’s father who suggested going to Newmarket. Another big decision. He was in school at the time and had already done his Junior Certificate. But you can’t leave school until you’re 16, and Egan was only 14 going on 15 at that time, so he had to wait and do fifth year.

Naturally his mother wanted him to finish school but they came to the agreement that if he was still keen to go over after fifth year he could go. He was and he did.

“Of course I was sad leaving,” Egan says. “Everyone misses mammy’s dinners but it probably isn’t such a big deal moving away these days because you have Skype and WhatsApp and you’re talking to your family every day.

“Mr Varian has been fantastic for me. He has had a huge influence on my career.

“When I went to Newmarket I started in the racing school. Aideen Marshall was my instructor and her husband Michael, who had previously been assistant trainer to Sir Henry Cecil, now had that position with Roger Varian. When it came to the last week of the course, everyone was sent out on work experience and I was sent to Mr Varian. At the end of my week there, I was offered a job and I was delighted. Everyone thought it was a great place for me to go.

“Mr Varian has been fantastic for me. He has had a huge influence on my career. When I was an apprentice and inexperienced, it was hard for him to give me rides because he has got a lot of big Arab owners who don’t really use apprentices that much.

“I think that worked out okay because it meant I was riding for a lot of other trainers. So I was picking up plenty of contacts while losing my claim but I still always had my base in Varian’s so it was good for both of us really – Roger could see me progressing, getting better and stronger as a rider.

“He was still able to use my claim here and there whenever he could but he always said he wouldn’t be able to support me as much early on in my career but the better you get, and the more you progress, that’s where I’ll pick you up and take you to the next level, and he was right.”

Agent switch

Around the same time Egan turned professional, he switched agents from Steven Croft to Tony Hind. It was nothing against the former, but an opening came up with Hind, perhaps the most respected jockeys’ agent in British racing, and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Hind books rides for Ryan Moore and Jim Crowley, and he did for Egan’s uncle Richard Hughes when he was still riding. All three won the jockeys’ championships. William Buick moved to the agent this season stating an intent to give the championship a go.

While Egan has stated his desire to ride better horses was integral to his decision to turn professional, being champion, a huge commitment, is very much in his thoughts, and a move to Hind signified that.

“Tony has some of the best riders around. He has a really good relationship with trainers all over the country, big and small, and that’s what you need in an agent. He has been very good to me,” Egan says.

“Obviously Group 1s are what jockeys want to win but at the beginning of the season, no matter who you are, if you don’t have it in your head that you want to be champion jockey, you shouldn’t be riding.

“You want to go out there and ride as many horses and as many winners as you can. At the start of every season, I want to be champion jockey and even now, although I’m so many winners behind, you still have that mindset, you want to win on every horse you ride and move up the table.”

Development

An interesting development in recent seasons in Britain has been jockeys, particularly the younger brigade, engaging in self promotion, through PR agencies and using their own social media. The benefits of such activity presumably is to get your name more recognised which will naturally help in acquiring more or better rides, while also advertising yourself as a potential sponsorship option, probably for a betting company, though for which you can’t be sponsored until you turn 25.

However this sort of self promotion is something Egan isn’t overly engaged in and he doesn’t feel like he is missing anything by not being on Twitter. Instead, he says his focus is all on the track, riding work, studying form and getting the best out of himself that way.

Since he started riding, he has travelled away each winter to gain further experience, taking another leaf out of his father’s book.

“I think that is something my father instilled in me from an early age,” he says. “My first winter started in racing, before I got my licence, he sent me off to Perth, Australia for three and a half weeks to work for a friend of his, a trainer over there called Gavin Slater and every winter since then I’ve gone away somewhere just to change things up.

“I was in America for two winters after I won the apprentice title and this winter gone, I was in India. America was a big eye-opener. I wanted to go there mostly to polish my riding up and learn about timing.

“I really enjoyed my time in India. The racing there is getting better. The breeding operation over there is definitely improving, they’re bringing over good English mares and stallions like Roderic O’Connor and Leitir Mor. I won the 1000 Guineas out there so it was a great experience.”

Lockdown

As it transpired, Egan got out of India just in time, in early March, just before that country locked down completely. Covid put things on pause upon his return but he used that time to go back ride out each morning at Varian’s, getting to know horses well and getting to spend more time with the staff, which is something he hasn’t been able to do in recent seasons.

Britain seems to be significantly further down to road to some sort of normal raceday experience than Ireland but though owners have been allowed attend the races for over two months now, Egan says it’s still something of a soulless atmosphere on course, with owners not allowed into the parade ring and barriers in place between them and the trainers and jockeys.

David with his father John, who has been instrumental in his son's career so far \Healy Racing

There has been talk of keeping some of the Covid-related changes in place, like the 10-race cards and jockeys only being allowed to ride at one meeting.

“If you make it one meeting, you are restricting jockeys from working, it is saying you have to pick one or the other, you can’t do two,” he explains. “That is something jockeys have been doing long, long before I started riding.

“Many jockeys in the weighroom have pros and cons to it and it’s something that is going to be talked about when the coronavirus does finish. From my perspective, I’m a young jockey, I want to ride as many horses as possible. So if I have the chance to go to two meetings, I do it because I’m young and hungry and want to do it.

“Maybe some of the older jockeys, the ones who have made it to the top, are happy to do one meeting and that’s fine for them but for me, I’d like to ride as much as possible.”

Time will tell. For now Egan just wants to concentrate on each ride as it comes. Progress is his main priority.

He concludes: “I just concentrate on riding as many winners as I can but obviously to get that European Group 1 would be great, that is the next kind of stepping stone for my career and once we get that, we’ll just keep moving on.” SUBSCRIBE TO THE IRISH FIELD & READ ALL OUR PREMIUM CONTENT