I ’d love to know what happened... I did nothing wrong but suddenly I’m out of fashion
Ahead of jump racing’s big week, four-time Festival winner Bryan Cooper talks about the hurt he felt after losing his Gigginstown spot
AS the odds for the leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival flashed up on his TV the other day, Bryan Cooper winced. Since 2013, when he exploded on to the scene with three winners at Prestbury Park, his name had always figured on the list.
Not as prominent as Ruby Walsh perhaps, or Barry Geraghty either, but he was there, in mid-division, sometimes higher.
This year, BJ Cooper is missing. And it hurts.
How come this richly talented 25year-old Kerry native, with a Gold Cup win among eight Festival triumphs, finds himself out in the Cheltenham cold?
Cooper isn’t so sure either how it all happened, but this coming week’s cupboard of rides is bare compared to the rich pickings he’s enjoyed since his stunning treble top in 2013.
He had 17 Festival rides in each of the last two years, 21 of them in Grade One races, and picked off four wins and rode 12 placed horses. Now? Now, he’s not sure if he’ll have more than a ride or two.
‘Next week will be tough. It will mentally test me more than anything has,’ he acknowledged with candour in the Festival’s build-up.
‘It’s different from being injured, to know you’re not riding there having been there the last five years and being in demand.’
The ‘demand’ for Cooper began after his treble in 2013.
That week he was Kid Cool from Kerry, so laid-back he napped in the weigh-room on a memorable Friday when scoring in successive races on Our Conor (Triumph Hurdle) and Ted Veale (County Hurdle).
Only 20, Cooper cut a stylish and balanced figure in the saddle behind dark goggles. His choirboy features belied an assassin’s stealth.
Heads were turned, none more so than the powerful duo behind the Gigginstown House operation, brothers Michael and Eddie O’Leary.
Soon, they’d witnessed enough to convince them Cooper wasn’t the future, he was the present, and by the time of the 2014 Festival, the youngster was in their cockpit, with the plum choice of rides in the maroon and white silks.
If year one was cut short by a wretched leg injury fol- lowing a fall from Clarcam, Cooper picked off five more Festival winners in the next three years, all for Gigginstown, including the Gold Cup on Don Cossack in 2016 when he rode with ice in his veins.
Twelve months ago, he delivered on Apple’s Jade (Mares Hurdle) and Road To Respect (Plate), and also had a second and two thirds, but a few months later, was invited to meet Michael O’Leary at Ryanair HQ in Dublin and his world wobbled.
‘When Michael [O’Leary] let me go, he said I wasn’t performing but it was the time of summer horses, who weren’t all that good,’ recalled Cooper. ‘At the Punchestown Festival, I heard some rumours (about the position) but I rode three Grade One winners that week. Maybe, Michael just wanted to reshuffle things, I don’t know. ‘I knew the job wouldn’t continue forever but I’d love to know what I did. Something happened that I wasn’t told (of). Looking back, I think the job is too big for one person. Gigginstown are a very big operation and the trainers they use have their own jockeys.’ For a while, Cooper coped with the hammer blow. He remained part of the pool of jockeys used by the O’Learys, chiefly riding for Henry de Bromhead, but the turf shifted in mid-October after he landed a job with Alan Potts, to ride his horses in England, trained by Colin Tizzard. ‘When I got the Potts job, the whole thing just stopped,’ said Cooper. After the Gigginstown rides dried up, the low point came at the Dublin Festival last month.
‘When Apple’s Jade ran at Leopardstown, Jack Kennedy was after getting stood down. I’d won four or five Grade Ones on her and was in Leopardstown that day, sitting in the weigh-room,’ said Cooper.
‘It was a big race for Gigginstown and I thought they might have seen that I knew her and had a good record on her.
‘When it (the ride) didn’t happen, and they put Davy (Russell) up, who’d never ridden her before, I knew it was finished.’
That was February 4 by which time Cooper’s Tizzard connection, which had begun promisingly with wins on Fox Norton and Finian’s Oscar, was uncertain following the passing of Potts. The ambiguity ended a couple of weeks ago when Tizzard revealed that Robbie Power would have first choice on the Potts horses trained in England.
It left him scratching around for rides on either side of the Irish Sea.
‘There would be days when you’d wonder “what have I done wrong” but I know myself I haven’t, I’ve just gone out of fashion,’ he said.
So how does he get to the point where his phone is hopping and he’s back riding Grade One races?
Ruby Walsh, whose counsel was sought by Cooper in his early days in the weigh-room, offered hardnosed advice. ‘It’s about keeping your head down and working hard.’
Cooper, too, knows there is no quick-fix guarantees about breaking back into the inner circle.
Unless you are on board the major jumping operations – Willie Mullins, Gigginstown or JP McManus, and Jessica Harington, too – the pickings for jocks are slim, especially at Cheltenham. Still, he intends to fly over tomorrow, to ride out in the mornings, to look folk in the eye and let them see he’s around.
‘You never know who you could bump into as everybody will be there, owners and trainers. If I’m seen to be riding a winner at Cheltenham it would be massive, but you have to get on the horses first. I’ll have to wait and be patient.’
Is he prepared for the hard graft after Cheltenham?
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to fall
When they put Davy Russell up, I knew then it was finished
into a job in Ireland at the minute. I’ll have to work myself back up.’
At 25, Cooper has at least a dozen good years ahead of him and he knows the leading lights – Walsh, Russell and Geraghty – who all turn 39 this year, can’t soldier on for ever.
‘We’ll see what happens. It would be different if I was 35, I don’t think I’d be doing it. Hopefully, I’ll get on one good horse and go from there.’
In time, there should be opportunities for Cooper to realise more Cheltenham dreams.
He still gets a buzz when he thinks of Our Conor bolting clear by 15 lengths in the Triumph Hurdle, to win for his much-missed mentor, the late Dessie Hughes.
He’d love another Gold Cup on his CV and a crack at the Champion Chase, too. On Friday at Leopardstown, Cooper rode Grand Partner for Tom Mullins in a handicap hurdle.
Arriving on cue at the last flight, he demanded a winning leap, and got one. A few more equally willing partners at Cheltenham this week would be just grand.