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'I was going mad, making phone calls to Swiss banks - people started to smell a rat, they wanted their money back'
Richard Hobson tells Peter Thomas how he went from anxious agent to the stars to training winners in his own right
author image
Peter Thomas
Senior features writer
Richard Hobson:
Richard Hobson: back at Cheltenham on Saturday with stable star Fugitif
Credit: John Grossick
Many of you will know Richard Hobson as the Cotswolds trainer who broke his long-standing Cheltenham duck when Fugitif landed a last-gasp victory in the December Gold Cup. Which is fine, because he's a talented chap who regularly finds gems among his small string at Bobble Barn Farm.
What you may not know, though, is that, in his 'other job' as a bloodstock agent, he's been instrumental in the careers of some of the finest jumps horses we've ever seen, with an eye for youthful talent that knows few equals.
He may have escaped your notice because most of his best work goes on in France, the country – or at least one of the countries – he grew up in, and where his network of contacts and grasp of the language give him an inbuilt advantage over many of the big-money buyers.
There was one monumental purchase, for example, as Hobson explains: "For the cheapish horses I was buying, I was going down to a guy called Jean-Luc Pelletan in Mont-de-Marsan [in south-west France], and he kept trying to get me to buy this horse, who'd already won a Listed race on the Flat at Saint-Cloud.
"He'd been schooling him for some time to keep his head right, because he was a Montjeu and still a colt, and he kept asking when I was going to find a client for it, but I never thought I'd find a buyer with that kind of money."
Hobson got Willie Mullins' people to come down, but only with a view to buying a different horse, who failed the vet. To avoid a wasted journey, they quickly hammered out a deal for the 'other one', and the Irish contingent were back on the plane before the proverbial hit the fan.
It started with a missing digit on a Swiss bank account number, which ended with a considerable sum disappearing into the ether for a couple of days and the buyers beginning to get cold feet. When the cash came down to earth, the deal was back on, but not for long.
"When George Mullins, Willie's transport man in Europe, went to pick the horse up," says Hobson, "he'd pulled both front shoes off on the walker and Jean-Luc wouldn't let him travel. He said to get the blacksmith there as soon as possible but the lorry was already there, waiting.
"I was going mad, making phone calls to Swiss banks. People started to smell a rat, they wanted their money back and it all got out of hand. The blacksmith was due in half an hour but the lorry had already left and it was only a phone call from Willie that got him to turn round and pick the horse up."
That, dear reader, is the story of how Hurricane Fly – for it was he – arrived at Closutton from darkest Gaul, going on to record 22 Grade 1 wins.
Hurricane Fly
Hurricane Fly: one of the stars sourced by Richard Hobson
Credit: Mark Cranham
"The scary thing is I think he'd probably have gone under the radar if he'd stayed in France because he was so awkward to train," concludes Hobson, and we both breathe a sigh of relief as we ponder the fine threads by which careers can hang.
'I rode a lot of slow horses'
On the side of a wold in the Gloucestershire village of Little Rissington, the practically Arctic wind belies the supposedly mild temperatures we're told have arrived. On the all-weather climb, though, Lord Du Mesnil, Fugitif and Some Scope are generating serious heat as they head towards their upcoming targets.
They're the stable's standard-bearers – three of them from a strength of just 14 isn't a bad ratio – and respectively represent the foundation, the fruition and the future of a yard whose international roots have translated into more than its fair share of domestic success.
The story began in the very British surrounds of Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where Hobson was born and near where his father trained until he decided the family should up sticks and settle in Pisa, Italy, in a yard next door to the Dettoris.
Richard Hobson (left) after Fugitif's December Gold Cup win with (left to right) jockey Gavin Sheehan and owners Carl Hinchy and Emad Hussain
Richard Hobson (left) after Fugitif's December Gold Cup win with (left to right) jockey Gavin Sheehan and owners Carl Hinchy and Emad Hussain
Credit: John Grossick
Hobson's older siblings stayed on, but the rest of the family returned to England, sold up for good and moved to 'Swiss Normandy' in northern France, where schoolboy Richard became a hard-working, bilingual stable lad, soon an apprentice jockey, eventually fully conversant with the world of French bloodstock, in between a spell riding alongside another brother in Maryland in the US.
Watching the Cheltenham Festival on TV was the only spur he needed to return to Britain, however, and once he'd decided he didn't like Newmarket he went to work for Graham McCourt's mum Mary, in a yard frequented by the likes of Richard Dunwoody, David Bridgwater, Hywel Davies and McCourt himself. "Proper horsemen," he recalls, adding: "If you couldn't learn from them, you'd never learn."
Hobson, though, having ridden 50-odd winners in 11 years and, proudly, been leading jockey at Towcester – "probably because I rode a lot of slow horses" – never progressed beyond journeyman status, and as his weight began to get the better of him, his weekend trips across the Channel became much more about bloodstock than riding.
"I started travelling around France and looking at a lot of young horses," he explains, "and once you start doing that, you soon learn from your mistakes and try to make as few as possible, otherwise it can ruin you in a heartbeat."
He quit the saddle in 2007, worked on the starting stalls for a while to fund his travels, cashed in a couple of properties he'd managed to buy during his riding days and bought some 'key' horses.
The first, Omix D'Or, had run 17 times in France, most recently unplaced in six in bumpers in 2007, but Hobson loved the staying pedigree, took a chance on being able to teach it to jump, and ended up having £1,000 on him at 16-1 to win the Highland National in 2010, in his own colours, trained by James Evans. Not to mention another eventual Highland National winner, Chic Name, bought for nine grand out of a Compiegne claimer in 2015 and trained by the man himself.
"That set me up for a while and got the ball rolling," Hobson remembers with satisfaction. Mullins was an early convert to his talents and benefited from Irish Arkle and Punchestown Champion Chase winner Golden Silver as well as Rich Ricci's first horse, Grade 2 winner Pomme Tiepy. Gordon Elliott, meanwhile, picked up Dortmund Park and Henry de Bromhead enjoyed Irish Champion Hurdle winner Petit Mouchoir.
All of which was ample proof that Hobson could unearth nuggets – but there was one more thing he needed to do.
'The goal is to make a living and feed my family'
"I always wanted to train," says the 46-year-old. "Just a few winners, for myself to start with, and then to encourage a few owners to come on board."
It wasn't easy, especially with a seven-year-old daughter and twin four-year-olds to complicate matters, but Hobson and his wife Shirley – formerly an amateur rider in Germany – took the plunge. They were helped enormously, he says, by jockey Alain Cawley, and combined training in England and, pre-Brexit, at a satellite yard in Chantilly, with the established business RH Bloodstock.
"The buying and selling is a financial necessity but it's very much part of the training business," he says. "We like to spot a nice young horse, and they're all for sale when they get here, but if we get an owner to buy one and keep it in the yard, that's a bonus for us.
"That's not the goal, though. The goal is to make a living and feed my family and the bloodstock side does that, but unless you've got a big-money owner, you have to dig deep to find something decent."
Hobson has plenty of French contacts he does business with every year, and one of his first big breaks was to lease a talented filly called Dame Rose, who went on to win the Aintree bumper and a Listed hurdle at Newbury.
William Hill: will no longer offer best odds guaranteed on horseracing from December 12
Lord Du Mesnil wins the Grand National Trial at Haydock in February 2021
Credit: John Grossick
Then, as owners started knocking on the door, along came Lord Du Mesnil, winner of Haydock's Grand National Trial in 2021 and "a very special horse" to his trainer.
"He was a long-standing maiden in France but with a pedigree I liked," he explains, "so we stepped him right up in trip and he kept on improving. We had a chance to make a good horse and we got it right."
Which, pausing briefly to admire Old Roan Chase winner Riders Onthe Storm, brings us neatly on to this weekend and beyond.
'I think a strongly run Ryanair will suit him'
"Fugitif wasn't on the big buyers' lists," recalls Hobson. "What I saw was a 17.2 hands backward horse who needed time to fill his frame. He'd been unplaced in two provincial bumpers and third in a hurdles race at Nantes, but if you can see past that, you can buy a horse relatively cheaply.
"A big horse I'd bought from the same chap before had somehow won a bumper, which made me think he must have been really good, but nobody else had spotted him. He turned out to be Acapella Bourgeois, a five-time Graded winner in Ireland, who cost €40,000, so I knew we had a chance with Fugitif."
Fugitif (right): gained a well-deserved first Cheltenham success
Fugitif on his way to victory in the December Gold Cup
Credit: John Grossick
Not that the glory days arrived quickly.
"He's been a slow burner on purpose," admits Hobson. "He was a big-framed horse and he's taken his time, but I've ridden a lot of good horses in the morning and I can tell you he's still going the right way."
His Cheltenham victory was a narrow one, but his trainer believes he's even better than appearances suggested that day and won't be disgraced when – all being well after Saturday's Clarence House Chase – he steps up again.
"As much as he got a masterclass ride from Gavin Sheehan last time, I don't think the margin reflected his superiority," he says. "If he'd been a bit closer to the pace, not made that mistake with a circuit to go, he'd have won by a couple of lengths going away, not by a nostril.
"I think a strongly run Ryanair will suit him and at the rate he's progressing I could definitely see him being in the frame."
Hobson has had to dig deep, but Fugitif could be his find of a lifetime.
Richard Hobson tells Peter Thomas how he went from anxious agent to the stars to training winners in his own right
author image
Peter Thomas
Senior features writer
Richard Hobson:
Richard Hobson: back at Cheltenham on Saturday with stable star Fugitif
Credit: John Grossick
Many of you will know Richard Hobson as the Cotswolds trainer who broke his long-standing Cheltenham duck when Fugitif landed a last-gasp victory in the December Gold Cup. Which is fine, because he's a talented chap who regularly finds gems among his small string at Bobble Barn Farm.
What you may not know, though, is that, in his 'other job' as a bloodstock agent, he's been instrumental in the careers of some of the finest jumps horses we've ever seen, with an eye for youthful talent that knows few equals.
He may have escaped your notice because most of his best work goes on in France, the country – or at least one of the countries – he grew up in, and where his network of contacts and grasp of the language give him an inbuilt advantage over many of the big-money buyers.
There was one monumental purchase, for example, as Hobson explains: "For the cheapish horses I was buying, I was going down to a guy called Jean-Luc Pelletan in Mont-de-Marsan [in south-west France], and he kept trying to get me to buy this horse, who'd already won a Listed race on the Flat at Saint-Cloud.
"He'd been schooling him for some time to keep his head right, because he was a Montjeu and still a colt, and he kept asking when I was going to find a client for it, but I never thought I'd find a buyer with that kind of money."
Hobson got Willie Mullins' people to come down, but only with a view to buying a different horse, who failed the vet. To avoid a wasted journey, they quickly hammered out a deal for the 'other one', and the Irish contingent were back on the plane before the proverbial hit the fan.
It started with a missing digit on a Swiss bank account number, which ended with a considerable sum disappearing into the ether for a couple of days and the buyers beginning to get cold feet. When the cash came down to earth, the deal was back on, but not for long.
"When George Mullins, Willie's transport man in Europe, went to pick the horse up," says Hobson, "he'd pulled both front shoes off on the walker and Jean-Luc wouldn't let him travel. He said to get the blacksmith there as soon as possible but the lorry was already there, waiting.
"I was going mad, making phone calls to Swiss banks. People started to smell a rat, they wanted their money back and it all got out of hand. The blacksmith was due in half an hour but the lorry had already left and it was only a phone call from Willie that got him to turn round and pick the horse up."
That, dear reader, is the story of how Hurricane Fly – for it was he – arrived at Closutton from darkest Gaul, going on to record 22 Grade 1 wins.
Hurricane Fly
Hurricane Fly: one of the stars sourced by Richard Hobson
Credit: Mark Cranham
"The scary thing is I think he'd probably have gone under the radar if he'd stayed in France because he was so awkward to train," concludes Hobson, and we both breathe a sigh of relief as we ponder the fine threads by which careers can hang.
'I rode a lot of slow horses'
On the side of a wold in the Gloucestershire village of Little Rissington, the practically Arctic wind belies the supposedly mild temperatures we're told have arrived. On the all-weather climb, though, Lord Du Mesnil, Fugitif and Some Scope are generating serious heat as they head towards their upcoming targets.
They're the stable's standard-bearers – three of them from a strength of just 14 isn't a bad ratio – and respectively represent the foundation, the fruition and the future of a yard whose international roots have translated into more than its fair share of domestic success.
The story began in the very British surrounds of Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where Hobson was born and near where his father trained until he decided the family should up sticks and settle in Pisa, Italy, in a yard next door to the Dettoris.
Richard Hobson (left) after Fugitif's December Gold Cup win with (left to right) jockey Gavin Sheehan and owners Carl Hinchy and Emad Hussain
Richard Hobson (left) after Fugitif's December Gold Cup win with (left to right) jockey Gavin Sheehan and owners Carl Hinchy and Emad Hussain
Credit: John Grossick
Hobson's older siblings stayed on, but the rest of the family returned to England, sold up for good and moved to 'Swiss Normandy' in northern France, where schoolboy Richard became a hard-working, bilingual stable lad, soon an apprentice jockey, eventually fully conversant with the world of French bloodstock, in between a spell riding alongside another brother in Maryland in the US.
Watching the Cheltenham Festival on TV was the only spur he needed to return to Britain, however, and once he'd decided he didn't like Newmarket he went to work for Graham McCourt's mum Mary, in a yard frequented by the likes of Richard Dunwoody, David Bridgwater, Hywel Davies and McCourt himself. "Proper horsemen," he recalls, adding: "If you couldn't learn from them, you'd never learn."
Hobson, though, having ridden 50-odd winners in 11 years and, proudly, been leading jockey at Towcester – "probably because I rode a lot of slow horses" – never progressed beyond journeyman status, and as his weight began to get the better of him, his weekend trips across the Channel became much more about bloodstock than riding.
"I started travelling around France and looking at a lot of young horses," he explains, "and once you start doing that, you soon learn from your mistakes and try to make as few as possible, otherwise it can ruin you in a heartbeat."
He quit the saddle in 2007, worked on the starting stalls for a while to fund his travels, cashed in a couple of properties he'd managed to buy during his riding days and bought some 'key' horses.
The first, Omix D'Or, had run 17 times in France, most recently unplaced in six in bumpers in 2007, but Hobson loved the staying pedigree, took a chance on being able to teach it to jump, and ended up having £1,000 on him at 16-1 to win the Highland National in 2010, in his own colours, trained by James Evans. Not to mention another eventual Highland National winner, Chic Name, bought for nine grand out of a Compiegne claimer in 2015 and trained by the man himself.
"That set me up for a while and got the ball rolling," Hobson remembers with satisfaction. Mullins was an early convert to his talents and benefited from Irish Arkle and Punchestown Champion Chase winner Golden Silver as well as Rich Ricci's first horse, Grade 2 winner Pomme Tiepy. Gordon Elliott, meanwhile, picked up Dortmund Park and Henry de Bromhead enjoyed Irish Champion Hurdle winner Petit Mouchoir.
All of which was ample proof that Hobson could unearth nuggets – but there was one more thing he needed to do.
'The goal is to make a living and feed my family'
"I always wanted to train," says the 46-year-old. "Just a few winners, for myself to start with, and then to encourage a few owners to come on board."
It wasn't easy, especially with a seven-year-old daughter and twin four-year-olds to complicate matters, but Hobson and his wife Shirley – formerly an amateur rider in Germany – took the plunge. They were helped enormously, he says, by jockey Alain Cawley, and combined training in England and, pre-Brexit, at a satellite yard in Chantilly, with the established business RH Bloodstock.
"The buying and selling is a financial necessity but it's very much part of the training business," he says. "We like to spot a nice young horse, and they're all for sale when they get here, but if we get an owner to buy one and keep it in the yard, that's a bonus for us.
"That's not the goal, though. The goal is to make a living and feed my family and the bloodstock side does that, but unless you've got a big-money owner, you have to dig deep to find something decent."
Hobson has plenty of French contacts he does business with every year, and one of his first big breaks was to lease a talented filly called Dame Rose, who went on to win the Aintree bumper and a Listed hurdle at Newbury.
William Hill: will no longer offer best odds guaranteed on horseracing from December 12
Lord Du Mesnil wins the Grand National Trial at Haydock in February 2021
Credit: John Grossick
Then, as owners started knocking on the door, along came Lord Du Mesnil, winner of Haydock's Grand National Trial in 2021 and "a very special horse" to his trainer.
"He was a long-standing maiden in France but with a pedigree I liked," he explains, "so we stepped him right up in trip and he kept on improving. We had a chance to make a good horse and we got it right."
Which, pausing briefly to admire Old Roan Chase winner Riders Onthe Storm, brings us neatly on to this weekend and beyond.
'I think a strongly run Ryanair will suit him'
"Fugitif wasn't on the big buyers' lists," recalls Hobson. "What I saw was a 17.2 hands backward horse who needed time to fill his frame. He'd been unplaced in two provincial bumpers and third in a hurdles race at Nantes, but if you can see past that, you can buy a horse relatively cheaply.
"A big horse I'd bought from the same chap before had somehow won a bumper, which made me think he must have been really good, but nobody else had spotted him. He turned out to be Acapella Bourgeois, a five-time Graded winner in Ireland, who cost €40,000, so I knew we had a chance with Fugitif."
Fugitif (right): gained a well-deserved first Cheltenham success
Fugitif on his way to victory in the December Gold Cup
Credit: John Grossick
Not that the glory days arrived quickly.
"He's been a slow burner on purpose," admits Hobson. "He was a big-framed horse and he's taken his time, but I've ridden a lot of good horses in the morning and I can tell you he's still going the right way."
His Cheltenham victory was a narrow one, but his trainer believes he's even better than appearances suggested that day and won't be disgraced when – all being well after Saturday's Clarence House Chase – he steps up again.
"As much as he got a masterclass ride from Gavin Sheehan last time, I don't think the margin reflected his superiority," he says. "If he'd been a bit closer to the pace, not made that mistake with a circuit to go, he'd have won by a couple of lengths going away, not by a nostril.
"I think a strongly run Ryanair will suit him and at the rate he's progressing I could definitely see him being in the frame."
Hobson has had to dig deep, but Fugitif could be his find of a lifetime.
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