The same night Luke Littler competed in the World Darts Championship last week, racing prodigy Billy Loughnane cruised to a treble under floodlights at Kempton to keep up the momentum from winning last year's apprentice championship, just a year after he started racing.
"We got hooked on the darts that night," Loughnane remembers. "We were watching on an iPad between races and then in the car on the way home. Because I'm quite tall, I have to be very careful about what I eat, so unfortunately I wouldn't celebrate a win with a kebab and a can of Fanta!"
The rise to prominence of teenage talent is not a strange phenomenon in racing and its history is littered with examples; Lester Piggott rode his first winner in 1948 at the age of 12, while Bruce Hobbs had landed the Grand National on Battleship 10 years earlier at the age of 17.
Since 16 is the minimum age for a driving license, we've had Walter Swinburn win the Derby on Shergar as a teenager, while more recently James Bowen won the Welsh National on Raz de Maree before he was old enough to take a driving test lay.
Perhaps the best example of the past fifty years is Steve Cauthen, who fittingly presented his trophy to racing's newest driver Billy Whiz on British Champions Day in October. The 'Kentucky Kid' rode 487 winners in his second season when he was just 17 and by 1978, at the age of 18, he had completed the American Triple Crown all the way on Affirmed.
17-year-old Loughnane, who spent the first seven years of his life in Ireland before moving with his family to Stoke when his father Mark - who has 50 horses - started training there, did not make his first ride until October 24, 2022.
Now he already earns more money from his father and drives an Audi A3 while it is not driven by his part-time driver.
Still young enough to be 'protected' by protective laws, he rolls his eyes and laughs when asked if he uses it. "Well, if you were concerned about it you would be offered a cubicle to change in, but there are a lot of young lads and no one really seems concerned about the locker room environment," he explains.
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Winning the title so early as an apprentice is an indication of his speed, but other records include him taking less time to stake his claim (novice rider weight allowance, 95 winners in 11 months) than any other jockey in recent history and that he will ride no fewer than 130 winners in the calendar year 2023, despite being sidelined for three weeks at Gulfstream in America and three weeks in the summer with a broken thumb.
Last May, six months after his first ride, he became the youngest jockey since Piggott to ride in a classic when he rode Sweet Harmony in the 1,000 Guineas. With everything else in place and incredible professionalism, he now needs to get on a good horse.
"It's all I've ever wanted to do since I could walk and talk," he says after an equicizer session with his jockey coach, Rodi Greene, a man he speaks to twice a day. "I was never one to mess around with friends when I was young, I had been messing around with horses and ponies since I was born. Now I do it, it's a daily activity. You can't turn it off or on. It's all worth it.
"And if there is racing on Sunday evening (there is a trial period going on, but not universally popular in the weigh-in room), I am available. I'm sure it would be different if I had a family and kids, but I wouldn't do anything.
So committed to his career as a professional jockey, at the age of 15 he saw the sports nutritionists at Liverpool John Moores University.
His father had kept him from pony racing until he was thirteen. "The first year was slow, then the second year was wiped out by Covid, but I had three good ponies and became champion. It was a huge help. You get to know the tracks, you practice in a racing situation and the bigger ponies are essentially little racehorses."
Geography for him might now be where Ascot and Ayr are on a map, but his mother Clare insisted he get all his GCSEs before becoming an apprentice. "She doesn't say things she doesn't mean!" he explains. "It was an incentive."
So what makes him so good? That's something he can't answer, but George Boughey, who similarly burst onto the scene as a trainer in 2019 and now uses him regularly, recalls Loughnane's father telling him before he became an apprentice that his son had a 'He was a good boy,' he thought, he could go for a ride.'
"He's been riding in front of me ever since," Boughey says. "It's his attitude that's most impressive - he goes way beyond his years and he gives the kind of feedback you'd expect from a 30-year-old who has ridden thousands of winners.
"He can drive well, thinks about the game and is a student of form who suits what we do. He has great hands, is good tactically and I don't have to talk to him much because he knows what's going to happen.
"Feedback is a big part of that. I will often look back at what he said about a horse on any given day to figure out what to do with it next. This is how you build a portfolio of information."
Covid, Loughname explains, was that game changer. With owners unable to attend, it became the norm for trainers to film the jockey's debriefing on their phones. "Dad has been sending one to the owners and another to me since I was 12," he recalls. "While they were talking about horses, I was riding at home, so it was huge to hear what they were saying. It has given me a huge advantage."
His goals for 2024 are simple; Again more than 100 winners, to get on one or two better horses, to enter the real estate market and get a bigger car.
"You can only get a mortgage when you are 18," he emphasizes. 'I'm going to start looking in March. As I pretty much live out of my car, spending three or four nights in Newmarket and home the rest of the week, I would also like a bigger car."
In a results-oriented industry, Loughnane is a young man who goes everywhere and hits the target.
