He doesn't have a ride in Sunday's International races and he didn't feature in last night's International Jockeys' Championship, but the irrepressible former Irish champion apprentice John Egan has been riding out of his boots since arriving for a three-month Club jockey stint at the start of the season.
Last night, Egan's prodigious tactical acumen provided the riding highlights outside of Andrasch Starke's magnificent International Jockeys' Championship double at the Happy Valley curtain-raiser to International week.
The live-wire Egan was also in double form, taking the opening event on the John Moore-trained Plenty Win, before producing one of the performances of the season to get the Peter Ho-trained 82-1 bolter Wonderful Winners home in the fifth. Egan's brace took him to 18 winners for the season and into joint fifth in the standings, despite having missed three recent meetings due to a careless riding suspension.
The double certainly helped clear the lurgy which has been hanging over him for the past couple of days and made the pain magically disappear from a previously sore left index finger, hammered against the tunnel wall at trackwork late last week.
Egan was walking on air as he left the city venue. 'There's something about this place which gives you such a buzz whenever you ride a single winner. To ride a double on such an important card as this, with a who's who of the racing world at the track, well it has to be one of the highlights of my career,' beamed Egan.
'I know it sounds crazy but I really thought Wonderful Winners could run a race for me. I liked the way he worked for me going into this and Peter [Ho] was spot on with his instructions.