WHILE recovering from a broken wrist, Port Macquarie jockey Robbie Agnew had some spare time to consider what life would be like outside of the saddle.
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One thing led to another and before he knew it, the 35-year-old had not only secured his trainer's licence, but had become the first active jockey in NSW to do so.
While he can only train five horses at a time while he's riding, a full-time career as a trainer looms large on the horizon.
"The incentive is there to build a foundation and have another business," Agnew said.
"I don't really want to be riding in my mid-40s so the timing is really good for me (to secure the trainer's licence) in that respect.
"You can hold the licence for five years so I'll be 41 when you have to make the decision to keep training or not train anymore and just ride."
Remaining involved in the horse racing industry was something Agnew indicated he wanted to do once he hung up the saddle.
"I do like to work and training is more full-on than riding because it is more consistent," he said.
"If you don't have workers (as a trainer) you've got to be there every day, twice a day for the horses.
"But as a jockey you ride three or four times a week and when you finish trackwork that morning you don't have to do anything for the rest of the day."
Active jockeys have already become trainers in Melbourne and Queensland so Agnew was keeping a level head about what it meant to become the first to do so in New South Wales.
"I haven't really thought about it," he said.
"It's been full-on getting everything organised so I haven't sat down and realised I'm the first one to do it; that doesn't faze me.
"If I waited until the end of the year there will probably be a dozen doing what I'm doing."
Agnew has set himself the goal of having 20 horses in work, but doesn't have a time frame in mind.
"If it happened tomorrow I'd be rapt," he said.
"We can only have five horses in work, but if I happen to kick a few goals, get a lot of results and someone came to me with a fair sized number of horses, I'd probably hand my jockey's licence in.
"Then I'd focus on the training side of it.
"Now I'm the first (jockey) with the (trainer's) licence I want to be the first to get a winner too."
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