Born in Dublin, Ireland on on September 24, 1970, Joseph ‘Joe’ Fanning graduated from Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) at the Curragh, Co. Kildare, and rode his first winner on British soil, Holdenby, trained by the late Tommy ‘Squeak’ Fairhurst, in a handicap hurdle at Sedgefield on November 14, 1989. However, his career as a National Hunt jockey was short-lived; two fractured cervical vertebrae, sustained in a first-flight fall from Pansong, trained by Fairhurst, in a conditional jockeys’ selling handicap hurdle at Newcastle on March 19, 1990 prompted a switch to the Flat.
As a Flat jockey, Fanning rode his first winner, Henry Will, trained by Fairhurst, in an apprentice handicap at Yarmouth on Jube 6, 1990. He rode 17 winners in 1990, 43 winners in 1991 and 45 winners in 1992, thereby riding out his claim. In his first season as a fully-fledged professional, Fanning won the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle on Highflying, trained by George Moore, on June 26, 1993. By that stage of his career, he had already formed an association with the Kingsley Park yard of Mark Johnston, also in Middleham Moor, North Yorkshire, which would become formalised to years later and has continued to the present day.
Nowadays stable jockey to Charlie Johnston, son of Mark, Fanning enjoyed his most successful season, numerically, in 2012, when he rode 188 winners. He finally won the first Group 1 race of his career, the Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket on The Last Lion, trained by Mark Johnston, on September 24, 2016, the day on which he turned 46 years of age. At that point, he confessed to having “a feeling of relief”, but has since added two more, the Prix Royal-Oak at Longchamp on October 25, 2020 and the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot on June 17, 2021, both courtesy of Subjectivist, also trained by Johnston.
Currently the seventh most-prolific jockey in the history of British Flat racing, with nearly 3,000 winners to his name, Fanning has not been seen in competitive action since November 2025 and underwent surgery for prostate cancer in February 2026. He has not, however, ruled out a return to race riding in due course.