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Seans Sunday
Get plane to Ireland
Get silks on
Ride the best of Ireland jockeys into the weeds
Get cheque and head home
The best …. It’s that simple
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
He was probably the difference between the winner and Waterford Whispers there. Walsh was travelling all over them and then made a meal of things from the second last onwards.
Proved again he can do it in their backyard, although somewhat ironic he got beaten by a horse called Bowensonfire. I expect to see him get some spares from those Irish trainers in March.
He has now ridden over 100 winners for Olly Murphy alone this season:
While I have no doubt of his ability, isn’t there a danger he could become a Champion Jockey in the Brian Hughes style? He gets the quantity, even more than Hughes did. But the quality isn’t really there. He still hasn’t ridden a winner at the Cheltenham Festival.
I believe Bowen to be a better jockey than Hughes but his lack of chances on the big stage is disappointing. And unless Murphy starts to get some better horses, it is difficult to see where the chances will come from.
Agree CAS. He wasn’t even in demand for better rides. I mean Haiti Couleurs is just a solid stayer with no real chance in a proper G1 and apart from him what else of Championship material did he get to ride?
Murphy is a very good trainer, but he has no real Cheltenham material. He doesn’t have the “expensive ones” with potential like Elliott, Mullins or Hendo have them and as CAS pointed out there seems no source to provide him exactly with that kind of material.Oh, and his ride on Haiti Couleurs in the Gold Cup was one of the worst I’ve seen in a while. He went a scorching gallop from the front and the horse was beaten a long way from one. He had no explanation for that and was quoted “jockey could provide no explanation for the poor form shown”. Of course not if you try to break the track record in the Gold Cup.
He is a quantity over quality rider much like AP was only without the JP retainer. Without doubt he will be multiple times Champion Jockey and ride a bucket load of winners like AP did (wouldn’t surprise me if he challenges AP’s total winners tally when all is said and done) but I am not sure he will be riding loads of quality G1 type winners.
I doubt you can really do both in the current climate, you either have to prioritise the daily grind of a Jockey’s Title challenge (travelling here, there and everywhere for winnners) or instead go down the quality route which is much more difficult now given that pretty much every trainer (and most top owners) have a retained jockey already, so it is much harder to consistently get on the favoured horses in the big races.
According to the RP Statistics page, Bowen has had 937 total rides in this current NH season which to the surprise of absolutely nobody is far and away the most rides by a NH jockey, to put it into stark perspective, only Brian Hughes (562) and Sam Twiston-Davies (544) have managed more then 500 total rides (although James Bowen is currently on 497).
Sean’s 937 rides is already 35 more than his total rides from last season so I don’t see him changing his mindset anytime soon – he will likely need to hope that his main source of winners (Olly Murphy) starts unearthing some higher class horses that can compete in the G1s that he can ride or alternatively get a big retainer…..but then the latter may affect his ability to keep being Champion Jockey.
Oh, and his ride on Haiti Couleurs in the Gold Cup was one of the worst I’ve seen in a while. He went a scorching gallop from the front and the horse was beaten a long way from one
Wouldn’t say that Ruby. Gaelic warrior wasn’t much off the pace himself. Bowen, like many, probably thought he was on the strongest stayer so tried to make it a true test.
“Haiti Couleurs is just a solid stayer with no real chance in a proper G1 and apart from him what else of Championship material did he get to ride?”
I suppose we should recognise he got within a nose of winning the King George on Banbridge – but that was on a spare ride.
There was some speculation earlier on the thread (which I didn’t agree with) that he ought to get the Elliot job. I think we can all agree that isn’t going to happen now (not that it was ever likely). Jack Kennedy has finally had an injury free season and proven his worth, as if it was ever in doubt. He is going nowhere.
More interesting was how Bowen was not chosen for the McManus job. It looked to me as if McCoy rates Cobden ahead of Bowen. I suppose that means a few more rides from the Nicholls stable will be up for grabs – but he looks well off the pace as far as Grade 1s are concerned.
There are no vacancies at the Henderson or Skelton yards either, so as stated above, unless Murphy can upgrade the quality of horse in his stable, then Bowen looks destined to be a bystander in the Grade 1s.
A bit like Brian Hughes, Bowen has not only proven himself top class but suffers from not being in the ‘right place’ to get on the right horses in the Championship races. I think the fact that people like Joseph O’Brien, Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott ad Nicky Henderson, among a raft of other notable trainers, use Bowen speaks for itself.
Bowen is an excellent judge of pace and horses run and jump for him. Hard to say he’s the ‘best’ around but he is very definitely in that top bracket alongside Townend, Mullins.D., Cobden, Kennedy, Walsh.
Cormack
“A bit like Brian Hughes, Bowen has not only proven himself top class”.
I don’t believe Hughes has proved himself to be top class at the highest level. He hasn’t had that many opportunities in Grade 1s and I can think of of a few iffy rides he has produced when he did have the chance (Real Steel, Waiting Patiently, Mount Mews).
You could also compare him to Peter Scudamore (especially in his Pipe years) who was also year on year out churning out the winners at the lower grade but didn’t have as much success at the highest level.
I can understand why JP went with Cobden because he has all that big time G1 experience riding for Nicholls and is not someone who would be travelling up and down the country chasing every ride for a Jockey’s Title. Unfortunately for Bowen, you can’t get G1 experience unless you ride in G1 races and if the rides are all accounted for you can’t get the experience needed….it is a vicious circle.
I for one don’t think his ride in the Gold Cup on HC was a particularly ‘bad ride’ per say, he was on the most confirmed stayer who is also best suited by front running and grinding rivals into the ground (a la Native River) so it wasn’t unexpected to see him push the pace from the front like he did.
I just don’t think the horse is a G1 chaser, there is such a big leap from being a top long distance staying chaser (at distances further than the Gold Cup) to then being a G1 chaser. The two times he has tried G1 company has resulted in him being pulled up both times (in the Betfair he never travelled a yard so you could arguably give him a pass for that) but even his 7L Denman Chase win over L’Homme Presse was not anything to write home about, as a repeat of that performance in the Gold Cup itself would still have only seen him finish a distant 5th (given that LHP did actually finish 5th himself beaten some 25L and 9L behind 4th placed Grey Dawning).
It was interesting listening to Matt Chapman speaking to the jockeys coming back to weigh-in following the Gold Cup because he said to Bowen something along the lines of ‘he travelled well for a long way’ to which Bowen said ‘he never travelled a yard with me’. I re-watched the race because my initial thoughts were that he did travel well enough to lead them for so long and while he was niggled along at various times during the race I found it hard to understand Bowen’s comment.
Upon further reflection, I can only put it down to the fact that he was simply out of his ‘comfort zone’ (god I am starting to hate that saying) because he was having to go a G1 Championship pace from the start rather than the more sedate pace they go in Irish/Welsh Nationals.
I think they need to realistically look at going back to races like the Welsh National and/or Grand National/Irish National/Bet365 Cup as he will be 10 next season and I don’t think he will be getting quicker now……unless we get a Gold Cup on heavy ground like we did for the year Master Oats won.
The bookies will be thanking Cobden for the getting turned over in the first 2 at Cork , beaten fair and square in the first but not the greatest ride on Absurde
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
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