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QUICK FACTS

DATE OF BIRTH: 25/3/88

BORN: Newmarket, Cambridgeshire

PARENTS: Paul and Karin Hamblett

SIBLINGS: Ashley, 26; Otea, 7

GREW UP: Newmarket, Suffolk

SCHOOLS: Scaltback Middle School, Soham Village College

For someone so clearly at home in one of the biggest boybands in Britain, Jamie Hamblett had an unusual start to his singing career. But when you look at the family he comes from, it was hardly surprising that his first line of work would be working as a jockey – riding racehorses. Maybe he should be called ‘GG’ instead of ‘JJ’!

Jamie comes from a place called Newmarket, which is at the very centre of the British horseracing world and many people in the town rely on the sport for work. His father Paul was a jockey, who later moved into training horses – work that requires getting up early every single day to muck out the horses’ stables and take them for their exercise.

Not long before he himself started racing professionally, Jamie’s brother Ashley had worked at one of the top stables in the family’s hometown and had won a series of races. As well as Ashley and JJ’s father, Paul, his uncle Martin also trained horses in Germany. And another distant cousin, Liam Heard, was a rider who helped improve horses’ fitness. Horses were very much a part of JJ’s life from the moment he was born, so it was no surprise when at the age of 14, he followed his father and brother into the horseracing industry.

With his dad’s help he was apprenticed to the world-famous racehorse trainer, Sir Michael Stoute. Soon after that, he started competing as a jockey. It wasn’t long before he had won his first race, and by early in his second racing season – at the age of only 16 – he had won four races.

It seems that winning is something JJ is very good at. Despite being nearly four years younger than Ashley, by 2006 he was winning just as many races as his brother and had made a big impression on the horseracing world. During his four-year career in the saddle, he took part in 270 races and won 24 of them. Part of his success may have been down to having a dad who was ambitious. It was this ambition that would later propel him to X Factor fame.

Jamie said his dad was strict about the need to work hard when he was young. Whenever Jamie looked like he didn’t have anything to do, his dad would say: ‘Why haven’t you got a ride today? Phone your agent and ask why you don’t have a ride.’

Paul would tell his sons to go for a run or something, to get them out of the house. He liked the boys to be busy, and this work ethic was great preparation for the X Factor competition – which is toughgoing!

It wasn’t only his dad who used to offer him advice, though. Both Jamie and his brother would receive help and words of encouragement from racing stars like Kieren Fallon and Frankie Dettori.

By the age of 16 Jamie was putting a lot of pressure on himself to do as well as he could. He told the Racing Post in 2006: ‘The worst thing is when I don’t live up to my expectations.’

Sir Michael Stoute described him as being a very promising young rider. ‘He’s getting plenty of exposure on the racetrack now and he’s developed a nice position in the saddle,’ he said. ‘He needs to work on his strength, but he’s got talent and is certainly on an upward curve. I can see the progress he’s making and he’s the kind of rider who could end up doing well for himself.’

It sounds just like the kind of thing that Gary or Louis might say on the X Factor panel, so JJ obviously had a lot of experience in being judged and taking both praise and criticism.

While racing for Sir Michael, he was given the chance to ride one of the horses owned by Her Majesty the Queen. The Queen owns several horses and many of them take part in races around the country, ridden by jockeys like JJ. About two or three times a year, Her Majesty would call in at the stables to check on her animals.

Jamie said it was a daunting experience, meeting the ruler of the country. He told the Daily Express: ‘Once or twice a year, she would pop into the yard to check on her horses – it was so weird, seeing her.

‘She sauntered in, wearing Wellington boots as if it was normal – and she walked into the horses’ box that I was in at that time. She said ‘hello’, fed the horses some grass and left. Apart from The X Factor, it was the most surreal moment of my life.’

As his career progressed, though he found it harder and harder to keep his weight down. If a rider is too heavy it makes it more difficult for the horses to go fast. Although Jamie wasn’t overweight, he was heavier than most jockeys, many of whom are tiny compared to most people. The ones who are successful often weigh below 8 stone (51 kilos). In 2006 he weighed 7st 12lb – about two or three stone lighter than most boys in their late teens. Although his mum fed him a special diet designed to keep his weight low but his energy up, it became difficult to prevent him from becoming too heavy to make sure his horses kept on winning races.

In October 2009, he took part in his last competitive horse race. It might have been difficult for the young boy to see a different future after he was no longer able to pursue his career as a jockey, especially as this exciting job had been the sole focus of his life up until that point.

When asked in 2006 what he did in his spare time, Jamie just laughed and shrugged off the question. He didn’t have time to relax – it was all about the horses.

He continued to be involved with horses by helping out at a stables run by another trainer called John Gosden. Until the day he entered the X Factor competition, he helped train the horses by taking them out on practice runs every morning. The riding has kept him very fit, as so many girls around the country now appreciate.

With looks that most men would die for, it was inevitable that with a body honed by such hard work and the kind of chiselled features that are made for the camera, he would try modelling and acting. But, according to his family, he has sung at home all his life. They used to hear him sing along to the radio the whole time and often thought he had more than just the ability to carry a tune. After he started carving a career in the entertainment industry, he came across the other two ‘J’s’, Jaymi and Josh, and leapt headlong as fast as one of the horses he used to ride towards the chance to form Triple J.