'I wasn't good enough and I'm not good enough' INTERVIEW.

Byline: Lee Mottershead talks to jockey Kevin Tobin, who has decided to change career and become an addiction counselor

HE is walking away, admitting defeat, closing a chapter. Yet do not for a minute think this is a meek surrender.

Scour the weighing room and you will struggle to find a more intelligent, level-headed or mature young man than Kevin Tobin. He is saying goodbye to the sport, the career and the life he loves. He is doing it for a reason. The right reason.

There are two strands to his thinking. First came the harsh, self-inflicted realisation that his ability as a jockey had plateaued. His Racing Post Hands and Heels Series title might have been claimed a mere ten months ago, but the dreams of championships and Cheltenham Festival triumphs have already disappeared. But as they faded, the possibility of a new life has dawned on him, a very different life, but one with the potential to bring even more satisfaction and success.

It is in pursuit of that life that the 23-year-old conditional to Charlie Mann is quitting racing. Depending on how he fares over the next two weeks, his January 2 victory on Mann's Mr Big at Folkestone could prove to be his last. On January 24, he will return home to Clonmel. On May 12, assuming the required pounds 25,000 of funding is secured, he will begin his first Stateside semester at Minnesota's Hazelden Foundation Centre. When he leaves it 12 months and 2,500 hours of studying later, Tobin - also about to complete an Open University psychology course - hopes to be a trained addiction counsellor.

"I'm looking forward to taking on the challenge at the Ballydoyle of addiction centres," says Tobin.

"I've always been interested in the subject because there is addiction in my family. I wouldn't change my mum, Helen, for the world and everything she has done has made me what I am, but she suffers from addiction. My dad, John, was a printer for 23 years, but at 40 he qualified as an addiction counsellor.

Since then, I've always had an interest in the mindset of addicts. I feel I'll be quite good at the job."

He is also quite good at being a jockey. The problem is, with only four winners ridden this season, he feels he is no more than that.

"I'm not going to make the grade, so I've decided to pursue other things," he says before delivering the most brutal assessment of his own talents.

"I genuinely feel that I wasn't good enough and that I'm not good enough," he says. "I have worked on my fitness, worked on my riding technique and been to see Yogi Breisner and Stan Mellor, but nothing I've done has made a huge impact.

"I would sometimes finish a race feeling that I had looked good, but I would then look at the video and be able to pick myself out a mile away.

No matter what I did, it wasn't happening. If you look at the top ten riders, you can see quite clearly that they are helping their horse. When I've looked at myself pushing a horse, I've felt for a long time that I don't really look like a jockey.

"Everyone who pulls breeches up over their knees wants to be champion jockey and, until recently, I would have given anything to be champion, but gradually your expectations drop. I began to settle for just making a living, but when even that no longer looked like being a realistic option, reality hit home.

"I remember coming back from the last meeting at Catterick after one ride for Roger Fisher. As I got into the car, I thought to myself that there is more to life than this. It's a long drive back from Catterick, and during the drive I knew I had to do something, so I went to see Charlie the next day.

I've only had 11 rides for him this season, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out why. I'm sensible enough to know that it's because I haven't been making the grade for him."

HE HAS, however, nothing but the utmost respect for Mann. He wants to thank the trainer for all he has done for him. Special thanks are also due to Mann's stable jockey Noel Fehily and to Tobin's agent Chris Broad. The three men have left a positive and lasting imprint on a soonto-be ex-Racing Post columnist, who will leave the sport he loves without the slightest hint of bitterness.

"My time in racing has made me look at any jockey with a tremendous amount of respect," he says. "There is no room for film stars in this game.

It's hard work and jockeys are very hard, very brave men.

"I'll never forget what I've done in racing. Any job I've done, any achievement I've had and any friend I've made has been through it. The best days of my life have been in racing. I wouldn't change a second of my time in the sport. It has made a man of me."

A fine young man with a proud past and an exciting future. Wish him well as he goes.

AND TOBIN IS NOT THE ONLY JOCKEY TO CHANGE CAREER . . .

Rupert Wakley

The former respected jump jockey, one of many success stories for the Jockeys Employment and Training Scheme, quit racing aged 29 in 2003 to become an estate agent. "It took a while to adjust to something else when all you've lived for is racing, but you have to accept that you are unlikely to find another job that matches the thrill of race-riding," says Wakley.

Andrew Garrity

His promising career as a jump jockey was cut short by a serious injury in 2002. On recovering, he travelled horses for the Maktoums and now works as a Stansted-based air steward for Thomas Cook.

"People reckon we live a champagne lifestyle on lemonade wages, but what I like is that it's not a nine to five job, every day is different and I work with and meet lots of interesting people," says Garrity.

Steven Harrison

A Flat rider for nine years until 2006, he won the 2008 JETS Griffin Award after establishing himself as a tree surgeon. "Giving up race-riding was a heartbreaking decision to make, but you need to stop kidding yourself and look forwards," says Harrison.

Claire Bryan

Claire Bryan, another JETS award winner, rode on the Flat. Now, in perhaps the most marked career change, she has used skills learnt on a bridle-making course to create her own range of "quality handmade leather gear, underwear and vibrators". The products, sold through her Kinky Monkey website, include the Funfactory Bandito Dildo that retails, primarily to Lambourn residents, for pounds 26.99.