I’LL NEVER NEED TO BE NOISED UP
HARRY COBDEN won’t be spooked if he heads down the walkway on a Cheltenham winner to the sound of silence because he knows the feeling.
The jockey is well aware it’s going to be a completely different type of Festival next month with the normal 250,000-strong, four-day audience absent due to Covid restrictions.
On the course it won’t make any difference to the top-class action. When the races are over, though, the thrill for horse and jockey to lap up the roars and cheers of adulation will be missing.
Cobden has been there before. There might have been an explosion of noise and colour when he rode Topofthegame to beat Santini and Delta Work in a vintage RSA two years ago but it was quite the opposite when breaking his Festival duck 12 months earlier after Kilbricken Storm posted a massive upset to land the Albert Bartlett.
He said: “The place where you really connect with the crowd is down the walkway. I’ve been fortunate enough to ride two Cheltenham Festival winners. To ride one that has been backed is unbelievable.
“The first time I rode one was a 33/1 shot [Kilbricken Storm], I swear to God no one in the stands backed it. It was silence! When Topofthegame won, a few people had backed it and it was incredible. God knows what it must be like to ride a Gold Cup or Champion Hurdle winner, it must be phenomenal.
“Day to day, no crowd doesn’t affect us in the races. It is, of course, brilliant to see people at the tracks enjoying the racing and that’s what we want, but our job is to jump 12 or 14 fences and win.
“It must be different for footballers now. You score a belter and there is silence. Some players say they do better when crowds are cheering them on. As a jockey, when you are doing 35 or 40 mph going into a fence, it gets your adrenaline pumped all right with or without a crowd.”
Cobden is relishing the big one and riding for the likes of owner Paul Barber. He said: “I went to school with Mr Barber’s grandchildren and when Denman won the Gold Cup, I can recall as plain as day being sat there.
“To think you’d be riding for Paul Nicholls one day in a Gold Cup?
“I didn’t even think I’d lead one up. Even that would have been amazing.
“All the build-up, the big Kauto vs Denman clash. An amazing memory and thinking you are riding for Paul Nicholls and Mr Barber now is pretty amazing.”