On the latest episode of the Unbridled podcast, former Gold Cup winning jockey Bryan Cooper reflects on the highs and lows of his career, battles with Paddy Brennan and his departure from the weighing room.

“I fell out of love with it in 2013 when things weren’t going well but I was lucky enough I got back to a very good level, riding for big trainers with another Festival winner.

“I was riding in all the big races, albeit not first strings, but was still picking up very good spares. To be blatantly honest, I lost my bottle.”

He added: “The injuries took their toll and I wasn’t enjoying riding horses, I was worrying about falling and getting hurt again. I couldn’t get up out of bed, go racing and think about that.

“I was doing it for so long and it’s like anyone with a gambling or drink addiction – you can only put it at bay for so long until it eventually all comes crashing down and unfortunately it came crashing down on the morning of Cheltenham.”

Cooper retired in the wake of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival, opting to not take up his rides on the second day of the Cotswolds showpiece. He hung up his boots aged 30 with 39 Grade One winners to his name, including nine at the Cheltenham Festival.

A rider since 2008, Cooper really arrived on the scene in the 2010/11 season when he won the Irish champion conditional jockeys’ title. His first Grade One followed a season later, aboard Benefficent in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown. In March 2013 his three winners at the Cheltenham Festival really put his name up in lights, before he managed a fifth-placed finish aboard Rare Bob in the Grand National.

After returning from a broken femur, he was appointed Gordon Elliott’s stable jockey in January 2014, replacing Davy Russell on most of the Gigginstown operation’s flagship horses in both Britain and Ireland thereafter.

At these meetings, Cooper became no stranger to battles with Unbridled co-host Paddy Brennan – a feud that would later come to a head in the 2015 King George VI Chase at Kempton.

A fiery rivalry with Brennan

Cooper remembers: “There was a lot of beef there. We shared the same valet, Bagsy, and I was probably the only other Irish person with Bagsy. I was always plonked beside Paddy at Cheltenham. I was quite young but he was revved. I came over a few times and I’d never seen anyone as revved.”

He added: “I suppose I was a bit calm and relaxed and maybe that was winding him up and I should have been respected him a bit better. We had our ins and outs on the track, he’s nailed me a couple of times on the rail and I got him back a few times – it was going on for years.”

In defence, Brennan said: “I suppose in my position, when a lad would walk around the with a swagger in the weighing room, I’d think, ‘I’m going to put manners on this lad’.”

The King George of 2015 saw Brennan’s Cue Card face the great Don Cossack – Cooper’s mount.

Brennan said: “All we were missing that day was hurls. From the minute we jumped off, he was in and out a bit. I went by the stands with a circuit to go and I got upside Don Cossack and he started screaming like a baby on my inner.”

Interjecting, Cooper said: “And he nailed me, he absolutely nailed me. I was walking back up the track and Paddy went down to parade Cue Card up. If I’d had a hurl I would have ran over and knocked him off the horse, I was so thick [with anger].”

Cooper would eventually have the last laugh, riding Don Cossack to glory in the 2016 renewal of the Cheltenham Gold Cup after Brennan suffered a fall aboard Cue Card in the home straight.

When asked if the best horse really won on the day by host Matt Chapman, Cooper insisted: “Yeah, honest to God. I didn’t even give him a slap behind the saddle, and you don’t win a Gold Cup like that. I was going so well even at the fourth last I took the back three out of him, got him into pop and he nodded at the back of it.

“I had so much horse. He lashed straight back onto the bridle and I kept out because there was a fresh patch of ground three off the rail and Paddy and Cue Card’s head appeared in the middle before he fell. The horse actually latched on and half went to run away with me down the hill. There’s no doubt in my mind, I would have won. I was in front sooner than I wanted, I would have loved if Paddy had stood up because it would have been a lot easier to win.”

Injury and retirement

During his career Cooper was no stranger to the treatment table, suffering a plethora of injuries including a fractured pelvis and collapsed lung.

Remembering a fall at Cheltenham which saw him break his leg, Cooper remembers: “It was horrific. I went to Gloucester first for surgery and then they sent me to Bristol. I was meant to have my own room but I didn’t and the guy next to me was going down for the same surgery prior to me, and he’d lost his leg. I was going down for the same surgery and he was there just before I went down: ‘You’re next, you’re going to lose yours as well.’

“Thankfully I didn’t and came back up with it, but that was extremely tough. I found the rehab tough but enjoyable but I can’t run anymore at all, which is very frustrating.”

Frequent battles with injury sewed seeds of doubt within Cooper, who says he would often wake up and not want to go racing.

“I was able to put it at bay when I got to the races for a certain period of time but it just started getting worse – I suppose when you’re getting falls, getting up and saying, ‘no I’m not doing this anymore’. It very rarely came into my head during a race. At the latter part I might have backed out of things whereas before I wouldn’t have, but it was the run-up I found the toughest.

“From the very minute declarations came out until I got into the car to come home, I dreaded going racing. I liked being in the weighing room and having the craic with the lads but I didn’t want to be going out with them. I did it for a period of time but the reason why I was open about it – I could have come out with a story of how I’m not getting opportunities – but there’s no point in lying. I had to admit it. I couldn’t think of anything worse that going around Leopardstown in a Handicap hurdle with 24 runners around you this weekend.”

Reflecting on his decision to retire from the saddle, Cooper said: “I’m very content, it’s going to be two years in March and I’ve never been as happy in my life. I still struggle to find that bit of a thrill like you get – as Paddy knows – walking into Cheltenham as a winner or walking down the chute – that’s a bit irreplaceable. I’m enjoying trying to find that next bit of a thrill that gives me that adrenaline again.”

“I ride out at home whenever I’m down there, I have a lot of young stock of my own. Flat, Jumps, anything I can make a few quid on I’ll have them down at home. It’s quite hard to buy property in Ireland. I have my own house in Kildare but no land so I’m very lucky to have the homeplace with Dad and ride out as much as I can.”

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