SADDLE SOAR
In-demand Harry is flying high & eyeing Gold
IMAGINE signing for Manchester City but playing for Tottenham when the Premier League leaders haven’t got a game.
“It’s a fantastic position to be in,” agrees Harry Cobden. “At the moment I’ve got the best of both worlds. I’m on the majority of Paul’s, and Colin gives me the leg up as well – I can play for both teams.”
“Paul” is 10-time champion trainer Nicholls, whose Clan Des Obeaux will be ridden by Cobden in Friday’s Gold Cup.
“Colin” saddles Native River – with Richard Johnson aboard – in a bid to repeat the Tizzard family’s victory of last March.
The two West Country rivals, who go into Cheltenham occupying first and third place in the jumps trainers’ title, fought for the jockey’s signature in the spring. “I took a month to think about it,” recalls Cobden, who sought the counsel of Nicholls’ former stable jockey Ruby Walsh before signing on the Ditcheat dotted line.
As a boy, Cobden would hurry home from school to watch the Festival on television, with Walsh and Kauto Star as his idols.
“Kauto, Ruby and everything to do with Ditcheat was always a massive inspiration to me,” recalls the 20-yearold, who at nine joined the pony racing circuit – a pursuit that pitched him against Nicholls’ daughter Megan – learning with Somerset trainer Ron Hodges and then riding out at Manor Farm Stables at 13.
Given the job as Nicholls’ conditional, Cobden landed the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham’s November fixture aboard Old Guard in 2015.
He has been in the limelight ever since and, when Sam Twiston-Davies left Manor Farm to ride as a freelance last May, Nicholls stepped in.
His first Cheltenham as stable jockey promises Cobden an Aladdin’s cave – none more so than the leg up on Gold Cup favourite Clan Des Obeaux.
Part-owned by Sir Alex Ferguson (above), the seven-year-old’s breakthrough win came in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day, before a Cheltenham tune-up with an 11-length victory in the Denman Chase – rescheduled after the flu crisis – at Ascot last month.
“He’s got a massive chance,” says Cobden. “He’s getting bigger and stronger all the time, and I couldn’t be happier with him.
“Even when he was a five and six-year-old, he was improving all the time and this year he has really come to himself. He’s a professional.
“Physically – and mentally – he’s ready for the big days.”
Everything to do with Ditcheat was always a massive inspiration