Joining the Clan helps Harry Cobden emerge as a singular talent in the saddle

If there are measurable extents of looking forward to the Cheltenham Festival and most of us can be safely placed in the 'really very much' quadrant, it would be fair to say Harry Cobden could be filed under 'to the nth degree'. The possibilities for the 20-year-old are so vast as to be barely imaginable, and when magnified by the enthusiasm of youth they expand so much as to be more or less infinite.

It was a few short years ago that Cobden was, by his own admission, being outridden by his schoolmate Megan Nicholls in pony races; practically yesterday there were suggestions that he would have to leave Megan's dad's jockey-heavy yard to find a secure foothold for his nascent career. How quickly things change in racing.

Now, with Sam Twiston-Davies having relinquished the top spot to go freelance and the logjam of riders at Ditcheat having cleared, the new number one is heading for the festival with every chance of landing a Gold Cup at his first attempt and backing it up with a handful of other winners supplied by his boss Paul Nicholls.