Sean Bowen deserves to be in best jump jockeys of modern era conversation
Sean Bowen deserves to be considered among the best jumps jockeys of the modern era, according to the horse racing experts at Timeform, after making the fastest start to the season since Sir Anthony McCoy retired at the end of the 2014/15 season.
Bowen was frustratingly denied a first title in 2023/24 when a long-term injury handed the initiative to Harry Cobden, but he gained compensation with a decisive victory last season, riding 180 winners and finishing 38 clear of his nearest pursuer, Harry Skelton.
He's well on his way to smashing that total this season, however, as he had a remarkable 123 winners to his name by the end of October - the half-way point of the campaign. For comparison, Bowen had 92 winners at the same stage in 2024/25.
McCoy, who rewrote a host of records during his phenomenal career, posted his fastest start in what transpired to be his final season in the saddle, riding 150 winners by November. It reflects well on Bowen, however, that his total of 123 winners was passed by McCoy on only three occasions.
Richard Johnson, who finished runner-up to McCoy 16 times, won the title four seasons in a row after his great rival retired. The most winners Johnson amassed by the end of October was 118, a figure he reached in 2015/16 and 2018/19. However, Johnson had more than 500 rides before November in each of those campaigns, while Bowen's 123 winners came from 437 rides.
In reaching 100 winners before the end of November, Bowen joins an exclusive club as only McCoy and Johnson had previously completed the feat this century. On nine occasions a jockey has reached 100 winners by November, and Bowen's strike rate of 28.1% is the fourth highest among those who have done so. McCoy, unsurprisingly, fills the top three slots, with his 149 winners in 2002/03 achieved from only 404 rides at a staggering strike rate of 36.9%.
McCoy's highest total for a season came in 2001/02 when riding an astonishing 289 winners. That is a formidable total, but perhaps Johnson's seasonal best of 235, achieved in 2015/16, could come into Bowen's sights.
It's not only weight of winners that Bowen has impressed with; it's also notable how many times he has come out on top in a close finish or prevailed when all hope had looked lost.
Timeform chaser handicapper Phil Turner said: "In fairness to AP McCoy, he was posting astronomical numbers virtually from the start of his record-breaking career. It’s obviously taken Sean Bowen longer to reach those sort of heights, but he’s now the go-to jockey for most punters who follow day-to-day racing – like McCoy, he treats every race as if it’s the Cheltenham Gold Cup. His motivation and drive are clearly big factors in that, though he also draws plenty on over a decade’s worth of experience in the saddle.
“That maturity largely explains why Bowen has got such a great appreciation of how much horse he has under him at any given time, which is why he regularly pulls unlikely wins from out of the fire by persisting with seemingly lost causes that most other jockeys would have given up on. Indeed, the number of successful late surges he manages to conjure is not solely down to his strength in a finish either, as his race-craft means he often delays pushing the button for longer than others, which can prove crucial up against rivals who’ve gone for home too soon.
"That said, his dashing win on Alnilam at Cheltenham late last month served as a reminder that he’s just as effective doing it from the front – all in all, the complete jumps jockey.”
Timeform's lead jumps analyst Dan Barber said: "It would have seemed far-fetched in the extreme for a rider to even draw comparisons with AP McCoy when the record-breaking jockey bowed out a decade or so ago. So it says plenty about Sean Bowen’s current trajectory that the two can be mentioned in the same breath and the fact that he has already surpassed Richard Johnson’s highest total at this stage of the season hardly suggests those scoffing at the comparison are in the right.
"Sure, it’s unlikely there will ever be another McCoy. But people probably said the same about the likes of Fred Winter, John Francome and Peter Scudamore in the pre-McCoy days and it’s hard to argue - for aesthetics as well as statistics - that Bowen deserves his place in the conversation regarding the very best jumps jockeys in the modern era."
