#oh shit! he smokes! that’s expensive! of course he also handrolls the worst little nasty ass cigarettes you’ve ever seen Jesus Christ

[elodieunderglass]

does Killie manage to be a flat-and-jumps jockey all the way up to retirement/greyuncle era, or does injury (and Derek) force him to find some other occupation in between the two? fascinated to know what the second-choice job would be since jockey is so much what Killie IS

(Killie the jockey OC)

I don’t actually know! You’re very right! I have no idea!

The average retirement age for a flat jockey is 31 and jump is 33. Of this, the tough little lightweight jockeys, mostly of the previous era when people were smaller, seem to keep going for much longer than you’d think, many riding well into their fifties - which is actually quite old for any athlete. There seems to be a relationship between generational jockeys and longer careers/older retirements, too, though that’s probably combinations of family support, as well as possibly passing down the especially wiry/muscular builds that do a bit better in the context. It’s a topic that gets danced around a bit, but it’s known that being more muscular and better fed, with better bone health, means you can take more damage and bounce back faster. Also, jockeys frequently retire in their late twenties without injury or being forced, because they’ve achieved their natural adult size and it simply becomes incompatible with the job. So shorter ones do seem to last longer in the job; and as a bonus, turn into those wonderfully wiry little tiny old people that stump around the place in big boots and giant coats, muttering about their allotments. Killie is set up to be one of those.

I want him to be forcibly retired, though, and I DON’T want him to go the predicted trajectory of training racehorses OR raising another generation. Even though I find it a personal Special Interest and highly absorbing, it is such an incredibly STUPID sport. I think he’ll get dragged out of it by Derek by the scruff of his neck and maybe simply kept as a Kept Man. And there might be an interesting story to explore there in itself. Who the HELL is Killie without his job? (Crisis.)

We know he’s patient and kind with children, good at nature, excellent at mental arithmetic, and somehow ends up strangely wealthy (they’d probably settle in the UK, where keeping horses in the UK is NO cheap hobby.) maybe he simply earns and saves a true fortune of prize money, from tackling a career’s worth of astronomical purses, and retires honestly to be a surprisingly pleasant house-husband.

I think @eldriwolf has fond memories of a retired jockey who was a kind and patient beekeeper and science educator. Maybe he could do that. Maybe as a nod to Tark, Diana Wynne Jones’s retired jockey, and my own interests/hobbies, he could get violently competitive about village fetes/allotment shows, and enter his increasingly serious show tomatoes or something. Killie with his own Jam Saga going on, silently fighting psychic battles with his many enemies at parish council meetings that Derek drags him to because they’re doing their Civic Duty 😌 and Killie’s having a full wizard fight on the astral plane with That Bitch Agatha-who-strategically-shoved-his-Victoria-sponge-cake-off-the-table.

Who knows!! What do you think?