Richard Hobson is looking forward to locking horns with some of the biggest names in the game at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.

The 46-year-old, who has 14 horses in training at his yard in Little Rissington, is relishing the opportunity to take on the big guns of Willie Mullins, Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson and the rest at the four-day spectacular which gets under way on Tuesday 12^th March.

“I want to compete against the best,” said Hobson, who moved to his base just outside Bourton-on-the-Water nine years ago.

“We’ve been there and competed against them before at the Cheltenham Festival and we’ve had four second places in high profile races.”

That’s a very good record when you consider that Hobson doesn’t have the spending capacity of many of his rivals.

But what the Hobson team do have is an eye for a good horse, an ability to get the best out of a horse and a willingness to work seven days a week to be successful.

And a quick look at Hobson’s record would suggest that ability combined with hard work does indeed still count for a lot, even in these days when money so often talks.

When Hobson spoke to The Local Answer he was on his way to Wetherby in Yorkshire, a trip that proved extremely worthwhile as the 11-1 Docpickedme won the two-and-a-half mile handicap chase.

Since joining the training ranks less than 10 years ago, Hobson, who is assisted by his wife Shirley, has sent out about 90 winners.

But what those bare statistics don’t tell you is that he has had nine high profile winners - eight in the UK and one in France – in races that the likes of the aforementioned Nicholls and Henderson have enjoyed success in over the years.

Those wins have included Dame Rose in the Grade 2 National Hunt Flat Race at the Aintree Festival in April 2017, Lord Du Mesnil in the Grade 3 Grand National Trial Handicap Chase at Haydock three years ago and Riders Onthe Storm in the Grade 2 Handicap Chase at Aintree in October 2022.

More recently Hobson had his first Cheltenham winner when stable star Fugitif won the December Gold Cup in thrilling style, seeing off the Nicholls-trained Il Ridoto in a grandstand finish.

The nine-year-old Fugitif is an entry for this year’s Cheltenham Festival in the Ryanair Chase over two-and-a-half miles and after finishing runner-up in the Magners Plate Handicap Chase over the same distance at last year’s meeting there is plenty of optimism that he could go one better this time around.

And Fugitif, who came a game third in the two-mile Clarence House Chase at Cheltenham at the end of January, typifies everything that is good about the Hobson stable.

“It’s quality over quantity for us,” said Hobson, who is a successful bloodstock agent for French horses.

“For us it’s all about the quality of the races. If over the next five or six years we could train another five or six big-race winners, I’d be happy with that.”

That works out at about one a year, of course, and it’s something he’s managed over the past nine years.

It goes without saying that he’d like more than that but Hobson, who knows the sport inside out, is also a realist.

He’s been around racing from the time he could first walk and talk because his dad Russell was a trainer back in the day and was well known in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, particularly in the Midlands and farther north.

“He was the youngest trainer in Britain at the time at the age of 26,” said his son with pride. “He was an old-fashioned Yorkshireman, there were no iPads or iPhones.”

And while he may have been old-fashioned, Hobson Snr was nonetheless very adventurous because he went to train in Italy and then northern France where he stayed for more than 30 years.

The young Hobson went with him of course – he is fluent in French – but he readily admits that in his formative years he wasn’t a fan of horseracing.

“I played football, tennis, anything,” he said.

Slowly but surely the sport of horseracing started to reel him in, although it wasn’t the actual racing that was the draw.

“I liked the pedigree side of things,” he said. “Going to the sales really interested me.”

That interest was to stand him in very good stead when he became a bloodstock agent in the mid-noughties, but before that he forged an 11-year career as a freelance jockey, enjoying winners in England, France, Italy and America.

“I was very much a journeyman jockey,” he admitted. “I rode in an era when there were some unbelievable jockeys – Richard Dunwoody, Graham McCourt, Adrian Maguire, Jamie Osborne, Graham Bradley.

“I’m sure I’ve missed some names out but they were top quality, people don’t realise how good they were.”

Hobson rode 104 winners during his career but when he hung up his saddle for the last time in 2009 he had already started work as a bloodstock agent.

It’s a role that he enjoys to this day and it is the main driver of his business.

It helps that it’s something he is very good at. He’s sourced many, many graded winners over the years, included the great Hurricane Fly, the two-time Cheltenham Champion Hurdle winner who won 22 Grade 1 races.

He was trained by serial winner Willie Mullins and while Hobson was not directly involved in his success, he retains a keen interest in all the horses that he has bought and sold on.

“Of course you do,” he said. “If you’ve been involved with any horse, you’re bouncing when they win.

“I’ve always had an eye to buying a nice young horse, whether I keep it myself or sell it on. Hurricane Fly is just one of many.”

The Willie Mullins-trained Punchestown Gold Cup winner and Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Sir Des Champs is another bought and sold by Hobson and while he’d like to keep more of the horses for himself, things would need to change for that to happen.

“The level of prize money in horseracing has got to increase, that would be a huge help for trainers like me,” he said. “At the moment, it’s not enough.”

And he readily admits that with three young children to look after, the bloodstock side of things may have to become his sole focus in years to come.

That would be a huge shame because as a trainer he obviously knows what he’s doing and, just as importantly, it’s something he absolutely loves.

“We’ve had some great moments, some great wins,” he said. “The adrenaline rush when you have a winner is fantastic.”

His most recent winner, at the time of writing, came with the highly rated Some Scope in a three-mile handicap chase at Doncaster and he’d obviously love to break his duck at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.

“I used to watch the Cheltenham Festival on TV when I was living in France,” he said. “That’s what brought me back to this country as a 17-year-old.

“I could see the crowds, it’s our Olympics. We’ve been there many times and it’s not an easy place to go and win.

“We’ve been very unlucky, we’ve been beaten a short-head which was heartbreaking but there’s always another opportunity.”

Maybe this year could be his year, that would certainly be Hobson’s choice.