New deal: Jockey Heard, agent Hampton launch careers together

Tyler Heard and Kyle Hampton came from different directions before they signed up with each other as jockey and client.

Heard was riding in his native England, frustrated in his efforts to make a living there. He came to the U.S. at the turn of the year with his girlfriend, jockey Grace McEntee, so they could try their luck on the Kentucky circuit.

Hampton was an up-and-comer in racing. Always a fan, he decided that the University of Louisville’s Equine Industry Program would be a great fit when COVID hit during his senior year in high school. Besides taking classes – he’s an accounting major as well – he began working as a hot walker at Churchill Downs. Then came internships with Fox Sports and “America’s Day at the Races,” meeting people such as Todd Schrupp of TVG and trainer/analyst Tom Amoss.

“My boss was Frank Lyons, who's an agent for Julien Leparoux. And it interested me a lot because at the time, I didn't really know about jockey agents and what they did. But I knew I wanted to be more of an analyst for racehorses, and I like reading all the statistics and the programs and stuff like that. So that's why I wanted to take the internship with Fox Sports. And I realized that being an analyst and agent kind of overlap, because you're doing the same thing of analyzing racehorses and trying to put your jockey on the best horse.”

Then Hampton met Jose Santos Jr., a young agent who represents nine jockeys. “He was really nice and was welcoming and was like, yeah, absolutely, I'll teach you,” Hampton told Horse Racing Nation Monday. “And I started interning, I guess you could say, under him in the mornings at Churchill Downs.”

Hampton thinks it was during the October meet at Keeneland that “Frank actually walked up to me one day and was like, ‘Hey, there's this guy coming over from England. His name is Tyler Heard. And he needs an agent and I thought you would be great. I know that you're looking to become an agent, and I thought this would be a great start for you.’

Lyons put Hampton in contact with Jake McEntee, Grace’s brother and an assistant trainer for Kenny McPeek at Turfway.

Heard picks up the story. “Jake told me, and then me and Kyle spoke about it and agreed to go ahead with it. I wanted someone young and hungry and someone who wanted to make a career for themselves just as much as I was.”

So far, so good. “He's still at university, he does online when he's not ringing trainers and stuff for me, but he's fully committed,” Heard said. “And he's out every morning and he's doing an exceptional job already. So I'm delighted with him.”

Heard made the move to the U.S. after realizing that riding in England is a losing proposition financially, mainly because of the purse sizes.

“Probably at the very least, (purses are) four or five times greater over here than they are in the UK,” Heard said. “At the very least – they could be more. You know, the bottom-grade races over here, the 20-grand purses would be a 5,000-pound purse in England (about $6,100), and you'd be getting $1,800 to the winner over in England. It's multiple, multiple times greater. Like maiden special weight races – 70 grand is insane. A maiden in England would be 14 grand, maybe, and that'd be a maiden where the top trainers are sending their horses, it'd be 14, 15,000 total purse. Whereas over here it's $70,000. So it's a massive difference,”

It’s not sustainable, Heard said, “not with the cost of living going up. I put 45,000 miles on my car last year. So anything I earned just went straight back into the fuel tank of my car. And I basically rode for free. Well, when I say rode for free, it probably cost me money throughout the year to try and pursue my career. And I got away with it for one year. But I couldn't do it for another year or I wouldn't have a penny to my name. So I had to do something about it.”

Heard, who now lives in Versailles, Ky., near Lexington, said, “It's sad to have to move away from your home country. It's not easy. But something had to drastically change for me to continue in the UK. And I wasn't really prepared to take the risk. I wanted to come over here and, one, change of lifestyle. I wanted to go to America, just to see the world a bit as well. And just see how I got on. It's looking OK, so far anyway.”

In three starts since arriving, he finished second and fourth at Turfway and won at Charles Town.

That Charles Town start was his “first race on dirt, first over 4 1/2 furlongs as well. It was good. I went to the front, so I didn't get dirt in my face. I got away with that. I came back with clean britches.”

He has two entries coming up, both for John Ennis at Turfway on Wednesday and Friday.

“I've been breezing for John Ennis quite a lot,” Heard said. “Hopefully, if I give them a good ride, I'd like to be able to ride for him as much as I can in the future. And then, hopefully, pick up what else I can here and there for the people I've raced for. I look forward to getting on the racetrack every day now. That's what I want to do. I just want to be out there on a racetrack riding in races. That's what I need to be doing.”

As for what Hampton has learned in his new role as agent, “I'd say mostly it's just you have to be consistent in your job,” he said. “You have to be there at the racetrack mostly every single day. There's no off days. A lot of it is just reading workout tabs, talking with the trainers, trying to get your jockey to breeze as many horses in the mornings as possible. And when you're first starting out, with Tyler being a new jockey and me also being a new agent, you just have to grind away as much as possible and just work as hard as you can.”