Keith Melrose crunches the stats to assess whether Harry Cobden is the right man for the JP McManus job

The role as retained rider to JP McManus is one of the biggest jobs in jump racing. While it was not known to be up for grabs, now that Harry Cobden has been announced it makes sense to do the analysis retrospectively. Has McManus called on the right man for the job?

There is an obvious answer: it's yes. No rational actor, whether they are using qualitative judgement or hard numbers, could argue against Cobden being one of the best active jump jockeys.

Looking at the numbers raises some interesting questions about who the alternatives might have been. It also prompts us to ask why Cobden was selected in front of them. For this, we took seven top riders and measured them on some of the best metrics for success. Mostly these were the jockeys with the greatest stature, but a couple of others were also included.