Neil Callan embodies the notion that most good jockeys pass unnoticed. For the past five years, Callan has not been below the top six in the Flat championship but he would still barely be recognised outside his home town of Newmarket.

A dank day at dreary Leicester was not the occasion to raise his profile. Indeed, Callan, 30, knows it will take a few headline winners. Either that, or a storming autumn in which he erodes the healthy lead established by Ryan Moore and finally wins the title.

“It's always in my mind,” he said yesterday. “It's something I really want to do. But if you start chasing it, I believe you will start making mistakes. Other years, I've had good starts and then gone quiet. I'm taking things more steadily this time.”

Callan began yesterday joint second, 24 behind, but if the championship was judged over the calendar year, he would have trailed Moore by only one winner. “I know some people think it should be a 12-month championship but it wouldn't be healthy,” Callan said. “You can't go flat out every month of the year.

“I just have to stay in touch with Ryan. Anything can happen in this game. But I do sometimes get frustrated by the lack of attention. I've got my self-belief and I think I ride as well as most.”

He would have been better known had he not remained admirably loyal to his retaining trainer, Kevin Ryan, last spring. Callan reluctantly gave up an outside ride on Cockney Rebel, who won the English and Irish 2,000 Guineas. “It's still a very sore point,” he said.

Ryan could provide compensation by supplying Callan with the winner of the most valuable race this weekend. The Yorkshire trainer runs the unbeaten Senor Mirasol in the Weatherbys Super Sprint at Newbury and Callan says: “He's a proper little professional and the track will suit him.”