'Harry is Hollywood' - Cobden is the star as Champions: Full Gallop sets out to sell racing

This could be one of the very best things that has ever happened to British racing.

Alongside that statement must go a string of ifs and buts. Champions: Full Gallop deserves to be a winner, and it very well might be, but its future depends on people deciding to watch it and then stay with it. Ever since the arrival of Formula 1's Drive To Survive, other sports have sought to emulate its success. This is racing's precious chance, an opportunity to become as popular as its most ardent supporters believe it should be. At the very least, Harry Cobden is set for stardom.

Few who watched Tuesday's London premiere of the six-parter's first episode will disagree that Cobden is likely to find his phone ringing long and loud over the coming weeks. Among those in the audience at Bafta were racing industry professionals, celebrities, influencers and sporting greats, including Peter Crouch, Chris Robshaw and Darren Gough. Cobden does not yet have anything approaching their level of fame. He soon might.

(From left to right): Harry Skelton, Bryony Frost, Nico de Boinville, Peter Crouch, Harry Cobden, Gavin Sheehan and Sean BowenCredit: Joe Maher (Getty Images)

The champion jockey, Paul Nicholls, Bryony Frost, Nico de Boinville, Gavin Sheehan and Shark Hanlon are among those who feature in a launch episode built around the 2023 King George VI Chase. It begins atmospherically with a black screen and the sound of birdsong giving way to pounding hooves. After a few words from ITV Racing presenters and pundits, there are morning scenes with Team Ditcheat, trips to Hanlon's County Carlow base and lots of racecourse action. It all looks great. It all sounds great.

"It's really exciting, it's exceptional and it's adrenaline-filled," said event host Vernon Kay before the screening began. He also told us he might well have been a jockey himself were it not for the fact his mother is allergic to horses and his father is a giraffe. That got a big laugh. An even bigger laugh came at the end of the section in which De Boinville and Cobden speak about the Ascot race won by Cobden aboard Pic D'Orhy and in which Shishkin refused to start. There is no wish here to spoil the surprise but it is Cobden who triggers the laugh. In a single moment he perhaps also steals the show.

The storytelling around Kempton's Boxing Day showpiece is excellent. We hear some of the King George riders plotting against De Boinville at the start and see Nicholls watching the early stages of the contest from the racecourse betting shop. Hanlon is as engaging in front of a camera as might have been expected, while Frost's contributions provide an impressive reminder of her ability to communicate with people outside the racing bubble – exactly the people this show needs to attract.

Premiere host Vernon KayCredit: Joe Maher (Getty Images)

Although powerful, exciting and enlightening, Champions: Full Gallop is, more than anything else, an advertisement for jump racing, as might have been expected given it is supported by Flutter and Racecourse Media Group. Difficult areas that might have been tackled in the first episode are left alone. This is a programme whose mission is to sell the sport it covers and that ITV televises on over 100 days a year. Scenes showing Frodon moving into his retirement home with Frost are particularly useful in that regard.

"To the stars of the show, whether you've got two legs or four legs, you've done a bloody good job," was the message from ITV's group commercial director Simon Daglish. One of those two legs, Nicholls, merits particular praise.

Daglish conceived the idea for Champions: Full Gallop three years ago. He approached Mel Leach, founder and joint-chief executive of production company South Shore, who was instantly excited and made contact with Nicholls. Without the 14-time champion trainer, it is likely the idea would never have gathered steam. He allowed South Shore to film a pilot that convinced ITV the series could work and then committed himself to helping in any way he could. Nicholls' stable jockey may prove to be the breakout star but, from within racing, it is Nicholls who made it all happen.

"We would never have made this show if it wasn't for Paul Nicholls," said Leach, who was also effusive in her praise of Cobden.

"Harry is Hollywood," she said. "He is an unbelievable sportsman, he has charisma, he's gorgeous and funny. He is the whole thing. Every single day during the edit, I was saying, 'More Harry, more Harry', because Harry is Hollywood."

Bryony Frost on the red carpet at the Champions: Full Gallop premiereCredit: Joe Maher (Getty Images)

Cobden and Sean Bowen will feature in a second episode hooked on their championship battle. Ratings and streaming numbers will be pivotal to any decisions about a second series but given shows like Drive To Survive, Full Swing, Break Point and Tour de France Unchained have been offered only on streaming platforms, Champions: Full Gallop has every chance of becoming the most-watched series of the genre in Britain.

"I think racing is the most uncelebrated sport in Britain – and I think it's also our greatest sport," said Leach. "The horses are phenomenal and the jockeys put their lives on the line every single day, yet nobody is famous. They should be more celebrated than Formula 1 drivers. They deserve their own series and they deserve to be the most famous sportspeople in Britain. My job is to make them famous."

Thanks to Champions: Full Gallop, there has never been a better chance of turning that dream into a reality.

• Watch Champions: Full Gallop on Friday from 9pm on ITV1, or stream the first three episodes on ITVX now

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