{"id":101986,"date":"2023-12-02T00:25:01","date_gmt":"2023-12-02T00:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossfitcaliforniacity.com\/?p=101986"},"modified":"2023-12-02T00:25:01","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T00:25:01","slug":"lizzie-kelly-talks-to-sean-bowen-as-he-targets-jump-jockeys-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossfitcaliforniacity.com\/sports-news\/lizzie-kelly-talks-to-sean-bowen-as-he-targets-jump-jockeys-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizzie Kelly talks to Sean Bowen as he targets jump jockeys&apos; title"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><span>EXCLUSIVE<\/span> Grade One winning jockey Lizzie Kelly talks to Sean Bowen, the quiet man scaling new heights as he targets jump jockeys&#8217; title<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Grade One winning jockey Lizzie Kelly talks to leading jump jockey Sean Bowen<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The quiet man leads the championship by 29 winners after Lingfield double<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Bowen changed his diet to help him with his pursuit of the jump jockeys&#8217; title\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The quiet man is suddenly making a big noise and enjoying the glare of the spotlight rather than trying to avoid it.<\/p>\n<p>Sean Bowen seemed to have spent his career happy to be operating with relative anonymity but he has embraced a new world which sees him leading the jump jockeys\u2019 championship by 29 winners after his latest double at Lingfield on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>He may have a target on his back and nearest rival Harry Cobden has the bit between his teeth but Bowen believes that with the support of his trainer father Peter, plus main winner suppliers Olly Murphy, Martin Keighley and Gordon Elliott, he will not be caught.<\/p>\n<p>It is certainly hard to see how reigning champion Brian Hughes, another at the head of the chasing pack, can make up a 42-winner deficit.<\/p>\n<p>Bowen does not downplay how much it would mean to him to be crowned champion. Make no mistake he desperately wants the crown. The jockey, who has chances of adding to his tally with five rides at Bangor on Saturday, said: \u2018I\u2019m more confident now. I used to hate speaking to the media. I was so bad in front of a camera.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/01\/20\/78486485-12815789-image-a-1_1701463753624.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Leading the jumps&#8217; jockey championship, Sean Bowen is a quiet man pursuing a big prize<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/01\/19\/78484623-12815789-image-a-2_1701460039206.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Bowen leads the jump jockeys\u2019 championship by 29 winners after his latest double at Lingfield\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I suppose you grow in confidence in yourself but rightly or wrongly I\u2019ve always believed I can ride. I have kept improving but I always felt like I was good enough. I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve changed.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/01\/20\/78485265-12815789-image-a-19_1701461135318.jpg\" height=\"373\" width=\"306\"><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Every successful sportsman I look at has a lot of self-belief. If you don\u2019t then you probably won\u2019t end up being as good as you should be.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I\u2019m fairly relaxed because there is a long way to go until the end of the season in April. But I\u2019ve had a very good start and I have got good stables behind me.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Still only 26, Bowen has been part of the racing furniture for a decade, seeing off Nico de Boinville in 2015 to become the youngest ever winner of the Conditional Jump Jockeys\u2019 title.<\/p>\n<p>He has been around racehorses virtually since he could walk and it is probably most diplomatic to say they played a bigger part in his life than school and teachers.<\/p>\n<p>He and his two brothers \u2014 Mickey, who works for Willie Mullins, and fellow jockey James, based with Nicky Henderson \u2014spent hours in a horsebox with their father and mother Karen as they transported horses from their base in Haverfordwest on the west Wales coast to tracks around the country.<\/p>\n<p>Not that Sean was initially in love with racing. He recalled: \u2018It was good because it was all family together. We\u2019d all go in the lorry and we could play G1 Jockey on the PlayStation all the way to the races!<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I remember the Racing channel being on the TV in the lorry all the time and it used to annoy me, I just wanted to be on my PlayStation. It wasn\u2019t really until I started pony racing at about 10 or 11 I started getting interested.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Even though I wasn\u2019t paying that much attention, I was probably picking up more than I thought when Tom O\u2019Brien, AP McCoy, Jamie Moore and Richard Johnson rode for Dad.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I was 12 when I started riding out and I remember schooling over a point-to-point course when I was 14 \u2014 it was petrifying but Dad thought it was a good idea so I gave it a go. Mum and Dad shipped me and James over to Gordon Elliott\u2019s in Ireland when I was 14. We\u2019d go over, spend three weekends pony racing with the week in between at Gordon\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Without James I\u2019d have been homesick but we loved it. We\u2019d ride six or seven lots a day. I\u2019ve never been so tired! We did everything, mucking out, creosoting and painting stables as well as riding out. We learnt a lot.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Bowen\u2019s career has taken in stints with champion trainer Paul Nicholls, alongside Cobden, and Harry Fry, who supplied his two career Grade One wins, If The Cap Fits in the 2019 Liverpool Hurdle and Metier in the 2021 Tolworth Hurdle.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/01\/19\/78484655-12815789-image-a-1_1701459996250.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Bowen switched to being a freelance rider, and got more mounts as a result of the decision\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But he feels he is most at home now operating as a freelance.<\/p>\n<p>Bowen added: \u2018I was thinking about it the other day, how little I remember from when I was 16. I was living in dream world a little bit and just floating along, turning up riding winners.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It happened very quickly. I started at Paul\u2019s and rode loads of winners and it was very easy at that time but I then felt like I was stuck in a rut when Harry Cobden got his job there.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He was younger than me and I\u2019d been there for longer but it was the right thing for Paul to do because Harry was better than me at the time.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I felt I had to move on and try something different so I went home that summer and worked for Dad and had an incredible summer. I ended up riding 91 winners, a really good season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I was freelance able to ride for more people and grow more contacts. I picked up a couple of spare rides for Harry Fry and when Noel Fehily retired I got more mounts, including winning the Grade One on If The Cap Fits.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/01\/19\/78484629-12815789-image-m-4_1701460182977.jpg\" height=\"456\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Bowen has hired a driver and changed his diet as he looks to pursue the championship<\/p>\n<p>Bowen\u2019s focus on a title challenge narrowed by sharpening up his routine. He also appointed a driver to help him focus solely on riding. His 476 mounts are more than any other rider this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018When I started I used to have a lot of takeaways and my diet was terrible,\u2019 Bowen said. \u2018Now my diet is good, I go to the gym as often as I can, I have got a driver and I use a jockey coach pretty regularly. I try to keep as healthy and professional as I possibly can.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The changes have worked. Bowen\u2019s career has moved to a new level and he has big ambitions.<\/p>\n<p>He would love to ride his first Cheltenham Festival winner and win the Grand National on a horse trained by his father. But he has laid down a marker for the 2023-24 season and it is the title in his sights.<\/p>\n<p>It will take some effort for any of his colleagues to catch him.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/racing\/article-12815789\/Grade-One-winning-jockey-Lizzie-Kelly-talks-Sean-Bowen-quiet-man-scaling-new-heights-targets-jump-jockeys-title.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EXCLUSIVE Grade One winning jockey Lizzie Kelly talks to Sean Bowen, the quiet man scaling new heights as he targets jump jockeys&#8217; title Grade One winning jockey Lizzie Kelly talks to leading jump jockey Sean Bowen The quiet man leads the championship by 29 winners after Lingfield double Bowen changed his diet to help him with his pursuit of the jump jockeys&#8217; title\u00a0 The quiet man is suddenly making a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lizzie Kelly talks to Sean Bowen as he targets jump jockeys&amp;apos; 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