Jack Callan has good memories of his childhood in Hong Kong. He remembers life at Racecourse Gardens, the fenced residential compound that looks out onto the racecourse bend just beyond the Sha Tin winning post; he remembers pony riding at Beas River, trackwork mornings and barrier trials at Happy Valley; and he remembers the Christmases, when he and his brothers received special gifts.
“We used to get silks made from Santa for Christmas,” he says, “My mum used to get them made and they were sort of mini versions of what my dad was riding in: we had some Beauty Only silks and Blazing Speed. We used to go out and run around in the park wearing them.”
His dad, Neil Callan, won the Hong Kong Classic Mile and two G2 Chairman’s Trophies on Beauty Only and rode Blazing Speed to a pair of Group 1 wins in the Champions & Chater Cup, as well as the G2 Jockey Club Cup.
Callan senior rode short-term winter licences in Hong Kong before making the move to Sha Tin full-time with his wife Trish and their young family in August 2014. He established a reputation as a committed, no-nonsense jockey, a forthright and at times abrasive character, earning the respect of the city’s tough-to-please fans who dubbed him ‘Iron Man’.
And, with under-18s not allowed at the races in Hong Kong, Jack and his three younger brothers, Henry, Ted and Will, were a regular sight at Happy Valley barrier trials, sometimes in silks, always eager to be part of what their dad was doing.
Now Jack, 19, polite, articulate and bright, is making his own name in the jockeys’ room in Britain, riding as an apprentice for the burgeoning George Boughey stable. He started off as an amateur while he studied for A Levels, then took out his apprentice licence a year ago and is among Britain’s emerging cohort of young jockeys that includes up ahead of him in their progression last year’s champion apprentice Joe Leavy and the precocious sensation Billy Loughnane, another attached to the Boughey yard.
Callan ended his injury-interrupted first apprentice campaign – he was out with surgery to straighten an old elbow injury and then a concussion – with a good tally of 50 wins for the year, and he now has his sights on mounting a big challenge for the champion apprentice title, a race in which he was fourth last season with 28 wins.
He has already gained some international experience, riding in Australia for a couple of wins at the year’s end, attached to the Annabel and Rob Archibald stable.
“I couldn’t have asked for it to go better so far,” he tells Idol Horse. “Obviously last year I had a few setbacks but everything that happened I think has benefited me.
“We take it as it comes, live day by day, because you never know where you’re going to be two or three days in advance. It’s only been two years or a year and a bit since I started riding in races, and I haven’t even been riding a year yet as an apprentice.”
Callan speaks to Idol Horse on a chilly, blustery cusp-of-spring afternoon at Newcastle Races in northeast England, a long way removed from Hong Kong’s humid sub-tropical climate where locals are wearing puffer jackets and scarves the moment the thermometer dips below 20 degrees Celsius.
He has ridden in the first two races, placing second then third and is free until the last, race eight. In his hands he has what looks like a pair of rolled up shorts. He says he is heading to the pool for a swim to make good use of his time.
As well as his father being a Group 1-winning jockey, his mother is a granddaughter of trainer David Ringer, meaning he already has a firm grasp of what being a jockey looks and feels like: the highs, the lows, the excitement, the danger, and the absolute commitment required if he is to be successful beyond his apprentice days.
“All the boys have grown up around it,” Neil Callan says. “They’ve seen me compete for so long and they kind of naturally absorb a lot of stuff, whether it’s me coming back venting after a ride or just saying I should have won on that one, I should have done this, should have done that. They probably don’t know that they’re learning from it, but their brain is absorbing and it’s when they’re out riding themselves that things come back into their mind sometimes and then they actually understand what I’m talking about.
“I suppose, when they’re younger they want to be jockeys, they want to be footballers, golfers, all of that. But I think when they start getting into their teens, then they start understanding things a bit more and kind of know where they want to go in life.”
Jack’s next brother down in age, Henry, is also riding, as an amateur. But Henry won’t go down the apprentice jockey route, he is already taller than his older brother and has stated his intentions to pursue his own dream to be a trainer. Ted, 14, is riding out and the youngest, Will, is too young yet to be riding anything beyond his pony. But a jockey is all the eldest Callan boy has ever wanted to be.
“Literally, from as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with it,” he says.
“I’ve just always been obsessed with the racehorses: I did a lot of show jumping as a kid, but racing has always been the end goal.”
Callan’s affinity with horses and his potential to perhaps make it in the professional ranks like his father was evident at an early age, three years old, in fact. It was during a family holiday to England, visiting family, that he first displayed it.
“He got ran away with on a pony,” his dad says. “It was the first time we let go of him to see if he could go up and down the garden at his grandparents’ and there was a gap from the garden of the house into the yard, well the pony just cocked her jaw, bolted through the gap, bolted down between the two barns for about 100 yards, and ran over to the walker.
“I dropped my phone and ran after him, thinking he’s buried. And there he was, still on her over by the walker and she’s just picking away at grass. He kind of looked a bit startled, but then broke into a laugh. Jack was always very natural on a pony,”
The younger Callan recalls the first time he galloped a thoroughbred and the thrill he felt. It was 2021, the year the family moved back to Britain from Hong Kong.
“We went down to Jennie and (trainer) David Simcock’s and Jennie said I’ve got a horse for you that you can come and ride out if you want, she knew that I was obsessed with it,” he says. “So, I ended up riding out for her and David, and David legged me on, the first ever morning that I rode out. I was 14 and I was tiny.
“The horse was probably about 20 times my body weight. But it was a very, very exciting feeling.”
His first race ride was a buzz, too. It came on April 2, 2023 riding Star Angel in a mile and a half amateur handicap for Boughey and AMO Racing. He raced prominently but the horse weakened to sixth.
“I just absolutely loved it,” he says. “The bug was already caught but even more so after that. I absolutely love what I do and it sounds cliche but it’s like almost never having to work a day in your life really. It’s just what I’ve been brought up in and I love the animals and I love the whole part of the sport.”
Callan is one of a number of sons of jockeys and trainers who spent time living at Sha Tin to have gone on to be a jockey themselves: the likes of Chad Schofield, Zac Lloyd, Luke Ferraris, Campbell Rawiller, Tom Prebble, Jaden Lloyd and Thore Hammer-Hansen among them.
The wealth of top jockeys and trainers he could count as close neighbours during his childhood is a who’s who of Hong Kong and world racing. None of that registered at the time but now his awareness is different.
“I moved there when I was five so I just thought that that was the normal standard of jockeys, which obviously isn’t,” he says. “They’re incredibly good jockeys and I ended up going to Australia in the winter, riding with some of the jockeys that rode with my dad. So that was pretty cool as well, to see how they all do it so differently. Obviously, to be able to do it on a world stage takes it to a whole new level.
“My dad rode a lot with Chad Schofield and Regan Bayliss, and Sam Clipperton, James McDonald. So, they were all in Australia when I was there in the winter. And then the Jockeys that were still in Hong Kong when I was there for the IJC in December. I watched Joao Moreira who’s just, he’s very, very good around Hong Kong, and Zac (Purton) obviously. You can appreciate a whole lot more just how good they are, when you’re doing it as a jockey as well.”
The level his father rode at, winning Group 1 races, mixing with jockeys of the stature of Moreira, Purton, Ryan Moore, Hugh Bowman, Gerald Mosse and more on the biggest days, that’s the level he too wants to reach. He knows there’s a lot of water to pass under the bridge yet if he is to make it and he is committed to the ongoing learning and skill development he hopes will get him there.
“When he rode as an amateur, he was never going to be under the microscope and he was going to gain experience and learn how to read a race,” Neil Callan says. “I said, ‘That’s all you do, learn how all the tracks are to be ridden, learn how to balance, but most importantly you need to be able to read a race, the pace, position, to adapt to a situation in a race where you need to adapt.’ I told him to learn how to read a race so that when he became an apprentice it would almost come more naturally to him.
“So that’s all I drilled into him. Obviously, he’s not perfect in doing it, he does make the odd silly mistake that he shouldn’t make, but he knows that. And that’s half the battle, knowing it and how to fix it. Learn from that mistake and move on quickly, don’t dwell on it, but improve from it and don’t do it again. These are the little things that I just drilled into him.”
But the fatherly advice is only one voice of wisdom, there is also Callan’s jockey coach, Michael Hills, and senior figures in the jockeys’ room, too, some of the very best, giving Jack Callan pointers.
He’s relishing the sporting family rivalry that comes into play, too.
“With my dad, I think it’s pretty competitive,” he smiles knowingly. “I rode against him in Bahrain (a few weeks ago) which was pretty cool as well. He was on the odd-on favourite and just cantered straight past me.
“He did the jockey bookings for both of us, so, yeah, I wasn’t too pleased with him. He makes a better jockey than he does an agent anyways, that’s for sure,” he laughs. “But no, yeah, there’s always that rivalry. I still live at home, so I always want to beat him and he always wants to beat me, to prove that the master is better than the apprentice, I suppose.
“Hopefully I can learn more than what he’s taught me anyways, that’s the plan.”
And, as he says, “trips to Australia and places like that really help” with development. Given his upbringing in Hong Kong, that international outlook is only natural, as is the desire to one day ride at Sha Tin and Happy Valley, the places that were once his playgrounds.
“It’s definitely a goal to get there at some point and ride there, whether that’s a stint or maybe someday long term,” he says. “I don’t know how my career is going to go but I obviously love watching the racing there and riding in Australia, it’s very similar in a way to the racing in Hong Kong.
“I’d love to be riding there at some point,” he adds, and the way he returns from his mid-racing swim and dictates all the way to win the last at Newcastle, the signs are that he’s at least pointed in the right direction. ∎
