He's the overnight sensation who took 22 years to reach the pinnacle of his profession. Don't knock it, applaud it.

What Kevin Darley has accomplished is, by any sporting standards, a mighty achievement.

Not since Elijah 'The Whip' Wheatley took the jockeys' championship back in 1905 has a northern-based rider topped the table until now.

There were those who said it couldn't be done. Even the unassuming Darley himself, bowled over by what has happened, had always felt it was an unachievable target.

Not simply because of which part of the country he chooses to reside, but because he's a freelance operator, unable to call on the undiluted support of a major stable.

Ever the realist, Britain's newly-crowned number one, modestly admits: "I'd never really thought about being champion because, realistically I didn't think there was a chance of it happening.

"Even when I was runner-up to Frankie Dettori five years ago, I can't say I ever considered winning it."

"Even this year," adds the Sheriff Hutton jockey, "although I was in front briefly back in May, and then from early June onwards, I always felt that as soon as Richard Quinn and Pat Eddery clicked into top gear they'd leave me behind."

Recent history relates that it never happened.

Darley smiles. "It was only in the last six or seven weeks of the season that I seriously thought I had a chance of becoming champion.

"I wanted it so much that I could hardly bear to think about it until it was in the bag.

"When it did finally come there was just an overwhelming feeling of relief."

Having ridden virtually non-stop from late March until early November, Darley competed in nearly 1,000 races.

The pressures, physical and mental, from such a punishing schedule are inescapable.

"It's not the riding - that comes as second-nature to me - it's the travelling which is the killer," he said.

"I've done something like 45,000 miles in my own car and throughout the summer I was also flying to meetings two or three times a week.

"There are days when you don't really feel like riding. But then you get out there and the adrenaline kicks in and you're away again.

"I'm one of the lucky ones, because I ride a lot of winners. Some of the other jockeys put just the same into it, but don't get the same rewards."

Tim Easterby, John Gosden, Paul Cole, Gerard Butler, John Dunlop and Mark Johnston have been among Darley's main supporters in a season, which saw reigning champion Kieren Fallon dramatically demoted to the sidelines following a crashing fall at Royal Ascot in June which left him with a serious shoulder injury from which he is still recovering.

The plane crash in which Frankie Dettori and Ray Cochrane were lucky to escape with their lives had a further knock-on effect in the musical chairs of riding arrangements, as did lengthy suspensions to some other leading jockeys.

"Circumstances have put me where I am," says Darley.

"But that's not just racing, That's life. My agent Terry Norman did a brilliant job on my behalf and I was there to slot in whenever and wherever I could."

Some will remember Darley as the champion apprentice of 1978, who then virtually landed flat on his face.

Having ridden 70 winners one season, he managed only 14 the year after.

From looking to have a golden future, survival quickly became the name of the game.

"It all came too quickly for me," he says reflectively. "I was young and nave. Leaving Reg Hollinshead, with whom I'd served my apprenticeship, to go to Newmarket was probably the worst decision I've ever made.

"To make matters worse, I had a fall at Nottingham, which kept me out for about six weeks. When I came back, it was as if nobody had ever heard of me."

It was thanks to his own determination and a newly-found alliance with Jack Berry and subsequently Mel Brittain at Warthill near York, that Darley fought his way back up the ladder after a four-year spell in the doldrums.

"Jack proved to me that you only get out of this game what you put into it," said Darley, who, since the late 80's, has never looked back.

A highly-successful association with Scarborough-born owner Peter Savill, later chairman of the BHB, opened many doors to him with trainers the length and breadth of the country, and also brought him Classic success aboard Celtic Swing in the 1995 French Derby.

In seven of the last eight years Darley has ridden more than 100 winners and yet his obvious talents have failed to bring him a single offer of a top job.

Now that he's champion, does he think that will change?

"I don't know. Probably not," he says. "If the right offer did come along, I'd have to consider it, but realistically, it might be silly to change what I'm doing now."

Darley, who teams-up with the Martin Pipe-trained Far Cry in tomorrow's Melbourne Cup, remains happy with his lot.

A staunch family man, he has taken his wife Debby and their two daughters, 17-year-old Lianne - a member of the Middleton Hunt's top tetrathlon team, which embraces riding, running, swimming and shooting - and Gemma 12, to Australia with him.

"It's a good excuse to have a fortnights' holiday," he said.

Nobody deserves it more at the end of such a momentous year.

"One of the nicest things was how much the championship brought recognition to the north, and how so many people up here seemed to be behind me," he reveals.

"There was a hardly a day I went racing when a gateman, or racegoers wouldn't wish me well. It made me proud to be a northern jockey."

Kevin Darley can now be prouder still as Britain's number one. A proud achievement.