by He could be one of the great stories of the sport; that the man who is wearing a track in the show jumping championship is allergic to horses. But he may want to retire quicker than that because Sean Bowen, in pursuit of his first title, is 30 clear winners clear of his nearest rivals heading into the busy holiday period.
“When I was little I had bad eczema and asthma and if Dad came in from grooming the horses, I would itch for days,” he says.
“When I’m riding in a race now I’m not long enough for it to bother me, but if I’m brushing one or them during the day I’ll sneeze and my eyes will water.”
This was meant to be the point in the season when the pack started to close in on Bowen after a fruitful summer and harvest but, as it has gone into a wet winter in this little hunt, just when it should that the smell would be getting stronger it seems. to be leaving.
Another irony not lost on the Welsh jockey who has already posted 120 winners this season is that, as a 3lb claimer, he was recalled to the British Racing School in Newmarket from Somerset, where he was attached to the Paul Nicholls stable, to repeat fitness test.
He is now close to the fittest jump jockey and on a rare day off last week when Ffos Las was abandoned he was in the gym at Oaksey House, the Injured Jockeys Fund rehabilitation center in Lambourn, an hour from his home nearby. Bathing, rather than relaxing.
“I think I failed half in fitness, half in attitude,” he recalls of that fateful day in Newmarket although the Bowen surname, like the Moore family, is a byword in the sport for the tough stickler. “I was upset to be there and to have to drive all the way from Ditcheat for something I didn’t think I needed to do.”
But his father, the Pembroke-shire trainer Peter Bowen, always drilled in and his younger brother James, who won the Welsh National at the age of 16, and older brother Mickey (with Willie Mullins) before returning home to help his father ) that they would. to be fitter than everyone else in order to succeed.
“When we were racing ponies he put us up the all-weather gallops; we were making two quarters a day,” he says. “But I realized how good the facilities at Oaksey House were when I first broke my collarbone. It is all set for jockeys and their fitness and when I left Paul’s after four years, I was riding the same amount of winners, 50-55-60 seasons, and I wanted to be doing better, so I started back in the gym. “
In addition, he sleeps with his mouth taped up so that he breathes through his nose after listening to podcasts on the subject. “I think it’s healthier for you,” he says. “The air is better filtered. My snoring isn’t as bad as it used to be, that’s for sure. It’s a lot of little things, and eating healthier and being more active will definitely help.”
Another crucial factor in his pursuit of his first title is that he has gone down the full Sir Anthony McCoy route of surrounding himself with good people; good agent in former weight room mate Alain Cawley, his girlfriend Harriett Matthews is basically a personal assistant, and he has a driver.
“My only job is to focus on riding. Last week I rode at Plumpton, Fakenham and then Ayr. Then Uttoxeter and Haydock. I don’t know how I ever made it without a driver,” he says.
It’s a sensible approach from someone who, academically, didn’t even sit his GCSEs. “I hated lessons but my friends loved me,” he recalls. “But I was always getting into trouble through boredom. Mom [a successful point-to-point jockey herself] She used to say that she didn’t know how I was getting into such trouble when she picked me up from detention. ‘He’s such a quiet boy,’ she would say, ‘I don’t understand him.'”
From year nine, he was home-schooled four times a week after riding. Until he was 12, he hadn’t even crossed his mind as a jockey. But starting with a lazy pony on which he and James did time trials up the gallop to see who could advance it the fastest, he started in horse racing.
The family bought an unbroken horse that did not breed and the animal in question, Cudlic Verona, became the best racing pony in the country. Bowen progressed from point to point and was a conditional champion in his first season with Nicholls.
“I felt sure when James started that he would be much better,” he says. “He was longer on ponies, he rode point-to-point on his 16th birthday, he rode doubles or trebles and he was a novice champion with 25 winners between March and the end of the season. It was all the rage.
“He’s been a bit unlucky with injuries but he’s great at getting horses to settle. You don’t see them pulling with it.”
Bowen’s success also means success for Olly Murphy, the young Midland trainer he is partnering with, and, although the focus this season is on quantity over quality, he is sure to bring the good horses, as which Murphy will do. “We are both young, we will build together,” he says.
As well as a convincing shot at the title, which includes chasing Boxing Day winners away from the Kempton spotlight – a book full of outings at Aintree’s new Christmas game – it is, he says, a Grand National rather than a Gold Cup.
“Even when I didn’t really enjoy racing [as a child] It’s always been Aintree for me,” he says, fittingly. “Dad’s ambition was to win it and when we started riding, it was his ambition to win it with one of his boys riding for him. He has won the Topham Chase five times and that was for him on Mac Tottie [in 2022] the best day of my racing life so far.”
For the jockey who is allergic to horses, winning the National for his father is a different story.
