Cool Cobden is the real McCoy

THERE comes a point in a title race when the champion-elect breaks cover and shows you why they won’t be stopped. It can be a football team on a sequence of wins or a golfer rolling in putt after putt. In the quest to become the leading rider of the winter, Harry Cobden did that last Saturday at Ascot with a masterclass on Pic D’Orhy. Here is a jockey riding at the peak of his powers. He isn’t for passing. When he bounced away as the tapes went up, catching his three rivals napping, I immediately drew a comparison with Tony McCoy, who was working with me on ITV. AP was a master of stealing the initiative at the start, never relinquishing a lead then throwing his willing partner at every fence. Cobden looks the champion jockey in waiting, and the crusade he has been on to whittle away the lead Sean Bowen had before Christmas has been relentless. Bowen, poor lad, had to contend with a six-week absence through a knee injury. He had a lead of 30 at some stage but his advantage turned to dust. Going into this weekend’s action, Bowen trails Cobden by four (127-123). Again, there is something McCoy-like about not giving up but that is where the similarities with ‘Champ’, as we call him, end. When I first met AP, in the 1990s, he’d leave the races after yet another productive day but he’d never celebrate. Often he’d shut himself in a dark room at home. He would fixate on the races he’d lost, rather than the ones he’d won. You’d ring him after the big days but he’d quickly tell you the moment had gone. It’s the same now. You can tell him he’s the man with 4,358 career wins, he’ll counter that by saying he must have had more than 20,000 losers. AP would always be on the end of a phone, but often, when we spoke, the number of times you’d reach him in hospital, somewhere around the country, were frightening. He stretched his body to the absolute limit, driven by numbers and the fear of failure. Rather than shut himself in a dark room, Cobden jumps on a tractor. I read an interview with him on these pages at Christmas that gave a proper insight into his life and mindset. Beef farming is his passion; he says ‘the stresses and pressures of racing go straight out of the window’. You need a thick skin to ride for Paul Nicholls, his boss. The master trainer is a combustible, competitive, winning machine. Ruby Walsh could hold his own when the sparks flew, then disappear to Ireland but stable jockeys who followed him could melt under the heat and demands.

What does Cobden do when Nicholls erupts? Nothing. He’ll let it go over his head, then disappear to the fields and his cows. On a rare day off, McCoy would devour racing. Cobden might have drive like all top sportsmen but he’d rather go shooting. Do not, however, let the laid-back demeanour fool you. I first thought he’d be a future champion at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day in 2018. McCoy, working alongside me, didn’t spare his criticism for a ride he gave to a Nicholls chaser called Topofthegame, who had been overhauled in the final furlong. In similar situations, jockeys have sulked and refused to speak to ITV. Cobden said nothing, stored it and used it as motivation. An hour later he won the King George on Clan Des Obeaux with an inspired, perfectly-timed ride. That’s what separates the great from the good. At golf’s Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles last weekend, the American commentators were marvelling at Tiger Woods’s remarkable record, stating that Scottie Scheffler would need to stay world No 1 until 2034 to match the great man. Well, how about this — Cobden would have to win the title this season and then every year until 2044 to match AP McCoy’s 20 straight titles, one of the great records in sport. I believe it will be his forever more. At the end of every season McCoy would reset. The previous championship was already history and he’d go again, the fear of failure a persistent, stalking menace. What chance Cobden going for a second title? Zero. He wouldn’t want to miss another shooting season.