Hanagan stays calm after wins

'Bad boy' Kieren Fallon, the six-times title winner, has his sets on regaining the championship that he last won in 2003.

So, too, does Frankie Dettori – the charismatic Italian who hopes Middleham trainer Mark Johnston's association with Sheikh Hamdan could see him enter the title reckoning after a prolonged absence.

The most talked about rider in Britain is the precocious

21-year-old William Buick, who cemented his new alliance with top trainer John Gosden by winning the Sheema Classic on the Andrew Lloyd-Webber-owned Dar Re Mi at Dubai's World Cup meeting.

And there's Moore himself, the most unassuming of champions and stable jockey to Sir Michael Stoute.

Yet the man that they all have to beat – numerically-speaking – at this age of the season is Paul Hanagan, the quiet man of Yorkshire racing and a jockey who has no expectation to become champion.

Six winners from Doncaster's two-day Lincoln meeting, the traditional curtain-raiser to the Flat campaign, was a remarkable return by any standards.

Five of those successes were for top Malton trainer Richard Fahey – evidence that they will, once again, be a formidable and winning combination in 2010.

As the quietly-spoken 29-year-old walked to the paddock at Town Moor, he was greeted by diehard racegoers who said they were backing him in the title race.

Hanagan smiled politely. But he knows it is not for him. Northern-based jockeys have far fewer riding opportunities, though this did not prevent Kevin Darley becoming champion a decade ago. And in-form Hanagan has no intentions of swapping his Malton set-up for the Newmarket rat-race.

"It went in one ear – and straight out of the other. It was only the second day of the season," Hanagan told the Yorkshire Post before booting home winner number seven,

20-1 outsider Quasi Congaree, at Lingfield yesterday . "A few years back, I think I had three on the first day at Southwell – but Saturday was the first time that I'd ridden a four-timer in my career.

"I've been taking a fair bit of stick from the lads. Something about hogging the limelight – but I just think Richard's horses are fit and healthy. He has a good uphill gallop that he managed to use throughout the cold snap. That might be the difference at the moment, And when you bang in your first winner, your confidence is sky-high."

The best of Hanagan's sextet, he says, was Irish Heartbeat – the horse that won Saturday's opener and was the prelude to a 1,495-1 four-timer. "He's a nice horse and will go for one of the big handicaps, the owner has suggested the Newbury Spring Cup.

"He gave me a bit of a scare because he pulled up when he hit the front, but there's definitely more to come." Hanagan is particularly enthused by Fahey's group of two-year-olds. "You can tell the yard's getting better and stronger horses with each season," he says.

One such horse could be Chiswick Bey, winner of the Brocklesby Stakes. "That's a very forward horse," said the rider.

He's also loking forward to being reunited with Cosmic Sun, the 66-1 outsider who provided him with his first Royal Ascot winner last year in the King George V Handicap.

Apart from recording a century of winners on the turf, a feat that the Warrington-born jockey achieved for the first time last year, he hopes to have the horsepower to contest the more prestigious, and valuable, group races after proving his credentials in the major handicaps.

Yet, unlike many riders who start to believe their own publicity after a few successes, Hanagan intends to do nothing different.

He loves the "crack" of the Fahey yard for its professionalism and camaraderie. He also knows that he has to stay on the top of his game when the likes of Freddie Tylicki, last year's champion apprentice, Barry McHugh and Lee Topliss are waiting in the wings. "We're all mates – which helps."

And, though he's not yet 30, Hanagan admits to having been in awe of young William Buick's maturity as he rode the race of his life to win the Sheema Classic before flying back to Britain for a solitary ride at Doncaster on Sunday.

"He makes me feel old!" laughs Hanagan, whose wife Anna, gave birth to the couple's second son, Sam, last December.

"But, no, it doesn't bother me that there's not so much attention on racing in the North. I know my goals – a century of winners and, hopefully, the chance to win some of the bigger races. I'm really happy. I'm not going to change anything – I just want to keep my feet on the ground and keep improving."

The words of a champion – in all but name.