The Field interviews Harry Cobden

Ahead of his debut as retained rider for JP McManus, the former British champion jockey sits down with Lucy Higginson to talk about his ambitions in racing and other sporting passions

Has any job a greater test of heart, nerve and sinew than that of a National Hunt jockey? Triumph and disaster are constant companions, as Harry Cobden was reminded again earlier this year. No sooner had his new appointment as retained jockey for the most powerful owner in jump racing, JP McManus, made headlines than he took a nasty fall at Ascot, missed riding Jonbon to win the Clarence House Chase and found himself out of action. But Cobden takes the knocks as they come: “You can only play with the cards that you’re dealt. I just look forward to getting myself right,” he says. (Read: Grand Nationals across the nations.)

Roller coaster of racing

He was raised on his parents’ arable and livestock farm in Somerset, and agrees that farming life helped prepare him for the roller coaster of racing: “It makes you slightly more realistic; plenty of things can go wrong.” Cobden’s love affair with horses began in the hunting field: put on a pony at two by his mother, and by 12 he was out twice a week “having a proper go” over hefty Blackmore & Sparkford Vale country behind fieldmastering legends Mike Felton and Rupert Nuttall. “I had every Monday off to go hunting,” he reveals.

At the same time, the racing bug was cemented by riding out for local trainer Ron Hodges, who got Cobden into pony racing. His path ahead was clear, and at 16 he famously skipped a GCSE exam to ride a 33/1 winner at Leicester. His mother was furious, his father less so – he’d had £20 on him.

By 19 he was appointed stable jockey to 14-times champion trainer Paul Nicholls, a partnership that has seen him through more triumphs – including the champion jockey title in 2024 and topping 1,000 winners last autumn – than disasters, such as the four months off he had for a broken neck in 2018.

Shooting

On a typical day Cobden sometimes can school over 120 hurdles before he even gets to the racecourse but claims he’s good at switching off, ideally with a gun and a dog: “Shooting is a passion of mine but the most important thing is going with good people.” Having cut his teeth on a small family set-up at home, he hasn’t had to travel far to enjoy high-profile, high-bird shoots such as Chargot, Haddeo and Bulland, “though I wouldn’t shoot high birds regularly enough to be really good at it”, he says modestly.

Invitations come thick and fast from racing connections, including appreciative owners. “I try to do between 10 and 15 days a year,” Cobden explains. “I probably could have had 40 days this season but racing comes first. Bag numbers don’t interest me; I’d have as much fun shooting 30 on a walked-up day as on a 300-bird driven day. It’s not really about pulling the trigger for me, it’s about the day out.”

His favourite place to take his Browning is the foreshore. “It’s just me and the dog: I have a labrador who’s mad on it,” he says. “If I get back early from the races or I’m riding locally, I might go in the evening and shoot a few – enough to dress out or make a meal of.”

Though Cobden tries not to have favourite horses – “I don’t think it does you any good” – he’s clearly pretty soft on his labradors, and was heartbroken to lose his peg dog to a rare ailment a few months back. “I would enjoy working the dog as much as I would the shooting. But I don’t take my current black labrador; she would ruin my day.” He’s resolved not to get another until he retires from riding “when I can put all the time in the world into it”.

Hunting and fishing

Fishing has been another interest since boyhood when he used to fish for salmon in Scotland with his grandparents. “It’s something I’d like to do again later in life,” he says. Nowadays he occasionally takes his rod to the coast in the summer at Lyme Regis or Portland “for bass and mackerel, some black bream and I was fortunate enough to get a turbot last year, too”.

He also hankers to hunt again, “with the Heythrop or one of those good hunts you hear about but it’s having the time”. With his McManus job starting in May, time may be in shorter supply than ever and Cobden has ambitions still to meet. Of course he’s had big wins (including a beautiful ride to win the 2025 Scottish National on Captain Cody last April) but he is desperate to win a Cheltenham Gold Cup. And would he throw a party if he did? “Celebrating is one thing I don’t do properly – though I celebrate now more than I used to because I realise how hard the big wins are to come by.”

Cobden agrees that Britain’s ever-growing population appears ever more disengaged from country sports but he’s encouraged by some racing initiatives to attract more young people to that sport, and points to the success of Exeter’s student packages: “Racing is definitely trying to do more and all the courses are trying new initiatives to attract younger crowds.”

Conversation rolls easily with Harry; he must be great company on a shoot day and I’ve a notion that Cobden’s brilliance in the saddle is supported by a level head that comes from having many other loves in life besides racing, helping him through triumph and disaster and ‘treating those two imposters just the same’. National Hunt fans wait to see what Harry Cobden’s future holds. Hopefully a Gold Cup or two and, eventually, another labrador puppy.

Read more of The Field interviews here.