'I had 45 winners, a good season, and was hardly breaking even' - how a young Cheltenham Festival hero became French champion jockey

A holiday to some may be a trip to the Bahamas for a week or a city break to Berlin.

Ask Felix de Giles if he will go on holiday in 2024 to celebrate becoming French champion jockey and he responds: “Not anytime soon. The two-month stint in Pau is something I look forward to as it's a nice change of pace. There is plenty to see and do in the town and sharing an apartment with James Reveley and Kevin Nabet will be good fun."

With the Pyrenees an hour’s drive away and a trip to the beach in San Sebastian only half an hour further, you can easily see why it would be a great place to spend the winter. But for 34-year-old De Giles, the British-born, half-Japanese, half-English rider who has scaled the summit of his profession since moving to France in 2015, Pau is about riding in all 24 race meetings – including riding the favourite, Saint Godefroy, in the most infamous and testing cross-country race in Europe, the Grand Cross de Pau.