Sean Bowen can claim to be the best jockey in jumps racing by some distance. Next month he will be confirmed as champion jockey for the second successive year as, on 210 victories so far, he is 107 ahead of Harry Skelton, his closest rival. Bowen is already looking ahead to next season, where he harbours serious ambitions of becoming the first jump jockey to ride 300 winners in a single campaign. These are staggering numbers that stand in stark contrast to his miserable record at the Cheltenham festival.
The Welshman smiles more than any other jockey I’ve met – for he operates in a gruelling trade full of hard and often taciturn men who are all fated to lose far more often than they win. But Bowen has a remarkably phlegmatic outlook that means he grins when I read out his meagre statistics from the Cheltenham festival. Apart from not having a winner in 52 rides, the average starting price of those horses was 40-1.
