Q. Bryan, talk to me about winning at Cheltenham at 20, a breakthrough year. Benefficent, Our Conor and Ted Veale, three winners, did you appreciate it at the time?

A. At the time it was massive for me and it was a big breaking point. I suppose at the time, looking back now, I probably didn’t appreciate it as much and didn’t realise how important it was at the time.

Q. So going racing and living the life you thought you had the game by the balls, you thought this was easy this is what you do every day?

A. Yeah, I suppose I was lucky that I kind of, there was a lot of very good opportunities thrown my way and everything just kind of happened. That rock star lifestyle, as such really. And it’s…it’s only when it dries up that you look back and think ‘Right, we probably should have done things a bit different’.

Q. And that week in Cheltenham, you must have been riding with serious confidence that week.

A. Unreal yeah, I remember Our Conor won and it was just great and I went out with Ted Veale, I remember Tony Martin telling me all week ‘he’ll win, he’ll win’.

He didn’t give me any instructions bar he told me he would shoot me if I get to the front before the last. I remember pulling up by the line and Davy Condon came up and he belted the back of the head off me, he said ‘Are you after winning again!’

And I kind of was just in awe of the whole thing. It was just, you dream of riding one winner there and then riding three in a week was just, at such a young age, was amazing.

Q. In particular Our Conor, not many jockeys will have that experience to ride a horse like him around Cheltenham that day.

A. No, I’ll always say it but I still believe he was probably the best horse ability-wise that I have ever ridden, and I’ve been lucky to ride some very, very good horses. I think that one means more than anything because it was for my late boss, Dessie Hughes.

Q. Describe your relationship with Dessie.

A. Sure, he was like a second father to me really as such he was very, very strict and I suppose he knew I came from a good backing at home.

But I was kind of, I was a bit lackadaisical in the work department in the yard. I’d try and get away without doing the evening stables but he was very strict and if I was late ....

I remember he had stables in front of his house and I was in charge of mucking the four of them out every morning.

And most other people would be sent up around the back but I was in charge of them four because he’d be out there to make sure if I was in. If I was in at three minutes past seven, he’d come out and he’d say ‘What f**kin’ time do you call this?’ But it stood to me, you know what I mean?

I was doing that right up until I rode those three winners in Cheltenham, seven days you know, flat out really. So it kept you grounded.

Q. The following year after your super Cooper Cheltenham you had a fall, a full National Hunt jockey’s experience, when you had a terrible injury off a fall from Clarcam. How bad was that injury?

A. It was, like, it was pretty bad. Looking now, my leg was in smithereens but when I got the fall, I managed to get my boot off but I remember the first fright I got was when the doctor, it wasn’t Adrian McGoldrick, it was one of the English doctors, came over and she said ‘The quicker we straighten this, the better chance you have of saving it’. And then I got a fright, I was like. ‘This is pretty serious’.

But the pain actually wasn’t that bad, compared to when I broke my femur in Down Royal but it was a very long process. It was a rough process, I was in Gloucester and had a four-hour operation there and then went to Bristol which was the massive, massive injury clinic. And that was rough, I had a nine-hour operation there. There was a person in the room beside me that went for the same operation the day before and he came back up with no leg. And seeing that was fairly rough, now.

But you get through it and the couple of days after that operation were grim.

I remember my dad, they didn’t tell him how long the operation would be, but himself and a friend of his, Alan Collins, were in the hospital together. I think Dad said they walked by a chapel and there was no sign of me after about eight hours and they said we may go in here and say a prayer for this fella. He could be brown bread (laugh) but, lucky again, I got through it and it was rough.

Q. So all the time being in hospital and getting out of hospital, were you thinking yeah I’m going to get back riding. I’m going to get back to where I was?

A. I always knew I’d get back. I remember Michael [O’Leary] rang me a day or two after the operation and he said, him and Eddie said, ‘Look, no matter what happens this job is here for you when you come back’, and that was always the case.

And the question I kept asking the doctors was, will I get back riding? And they never said yes at the start. I remember I rang Paddy Kenny when I got back home and when he saw the x-rays after the surgery, he just kept saying ‘you will be back’.

Q. Back up again, you rode the Gold Cup winner in 2016, Don Cossack. Is that your best moment?

A. Yeah, like it’s the biggest race I’ve ever won and it’s the race, like to me growing up, the Gold Cup, a lot of people dream of a Grand National but to me a Gold Cup, it’s the biggest race in the jumps season, the championship race.

It’s extremely hard to win it and, for me, growing up watching Ruby and them winning that race, to win that was incredible.

And to do it for Michael and Eddie, you know, they had pumped an awful lot of money into the game. They won it back in 2006 with War Of Attrition and they gave many attempts to try win it again and they failed.

So to do that for them, because I know that was the race Michael used to say was the one he was spending the big money on to win.

Q. The weeks leading up to that Gold Cup, there was Don Poli also in the race, there was a chance that you might ride him?

A. Yeah, he was the up-and-coming horse. He was a novice and my record with him was really, really good. He was a hard horse to gauge because he was unbeaten but he never was flashy.

But I knew Don Cossack had an awful lot of natural ability. There was a schooling session in Leopardstown and I just saw him there. He got a nice bit of ground and the sun came on his back and just, my decision was made that day without telling anyone.

I remember that day there was just a bit of a ‘wow’ factor about him. I thought back to the King George, considering the absolute horrific passage we got throughout the whole race, I was still there at the second last before he fell. So when I thought about that, it was a fairly easy decision.

Q. Talk us through the race on Don Cossack.

A. I walked the track with Gordon that day and we found a little strip of ground because he didn’t like being crowded, so we said we’d keep him two or three off the rail on the fresh ground.

That was plan A and plan A just went the whole way there. I came back to freewheel down the hill and he just lashed back onto the bridle again.

So I was never in doubt. I saw Cue Card’s head appear beside me and I said ‘Jesus, thank God, something to bring me along!’

This head appeared in between us and then he disappeared. So I was in front a lot sooner than I wanted to be. But it went so easy, I don’t think you will see many easier Gold Cup winners to be honest.

Q. What goes through your mind, what goes through your head when you pass the winning line after winning the Gold Cup, the Cheltenham Gold Cup?

A. When I look back now it’s still a bit cringe, I got quite a bit, a little bit emotional. But like there was huge pressure on my shoulders, he was 5/2 favourite, he was a very short-priced favourite and I just kind of got into my head not to let that get to me that day.

Thankfully I didn’t, but I got a bit emotional because Dessie had passed away about 12 months before that as well and it just, it meant an awful lot you know, because I was very young. I think at the time, I was the youngest ever to win it.

Q. You mentioned a jockey’s name, Ruby Walsh. Talk to me about you being a lot younger than Ruby, being spoken about in the same breath as being maybe the next Ruby. What was it like being in the weighing room competing against him and riding against him?

A. It’s funny I only thought about this the other day. He made me - him, Barry [Geraghty] and Paul [Carberry] probably made me into the rider I was. Because you are watching, trying to get to that level.

And it’s only now, I miss them being around now because they set such a high bar at a big level. Like just watching little things that they do and you try and do that whereas I feel now like, there’s some incredible jockeys out there but they were just so, so ahead at the time.

You were always trying to get to that level, and then I suppose when they are gone it’s kind of like, ‘Right, I have to try keep going’. You might watch back videos of races I had before but they were … Ruby around Cheltenham and Barry around Cheltenham were just, they were sick, you know? They were just incredible, the things they were able to do.

Q. In the weighing room were you ever intimidated by those big names?

A. No, never, they were hard on me for good reasons. I was a bit cheeky and I do think maybe, they would respect you but they would bring you down.

I remember I turned into the straight one day in Cheltenham, my winning chance was gone but I still thought I had a life. I drove Barry back onto the rails on the bend, kept him in. He won the race, the Triumph Hurdle, but when he pulled up he went absolutely AWOL at me, “what are you at?”

He still reminded me about it for a year or two after. Not in a bad way but you know, just letting you know that they are still around.

And you knew not to, you knew to stand up for yourself but at the sort of level of not being disrespectful at the same time.

Q. Then 16 months after winning the Gold Cup for Gigginstown, they let you go. Reflecting back now, how do you feel you handled the next couple of years after that.

A. Probably for about a year to 18 months, I lost the plot. About a month after losing the Gigginstown job, I got the Alan Potts job which was another quite big very big operation. He was spending a lot of money so I thought right, grand. Losing Gigginstown was just quickly forgotten about.

I was still riding a bit for them, and then Alan Potts passed away, I was in England quite a bit, and I came back to Ireland full time. There was just nothing there.

When I look back now I feel like I should have given myself a kick up the hole straight away and went working. But I kind of lived in the bubble thinking, ‘Oh it will change next week - they know where I am.’

I suppose Irish racing changed an awful lot in those couple of years, where there was a lot of good kids coming through. So no matter who you are or what you do, you still have to prove yourself to people when you don’t have a job because there was a lot of riders around.

So it didn’t matter what sort of CV I had. That was just thrown aside and I had to change that and I probably didn’t and I lived in that bubble for a while. I just got lazy and kind of got a bit thick-headed and probably got a bit sour with people. When I should have been begging people, or showing people I wanted it, I didn’t. I probably was living in the past a bit and that wasn’t the right thing to do.

Q. Did you go into a dark corner or did you stick your head under the covers?

A. I just kept living on a week-to-week basis, I wasn’t a fella who would show that I was kind of down, I’d just always try to tip away with people. When people said I didn’t look happy at the races that I was going around with a grumpy head on me, I didn’t think that.

I remember after Galway 2019, it hit me then. There were a few other personal issues that were going on as well and the whole thing just came down on top of me like a ton of bricks. I went home for a couple of weeks and said nothing to no one, and I said, ‘Right, I need to figure a few things out.’

I went off for a month and did a bit of travelling in Australia. I think everyone actually thought I was injured so it didn’t really matter. I sorted a few things out for myself, it was my way of dealing with it. Some people go to sports psychologists but I didn’t believe in that.

Q. So the rock star lifestyle is over, and now Bryan Cooper is going to Australia on his own and nobody knows him?

A. Basically yeah. Like, I remember I spoke to two friends of mine, Mikey Foley and Matt O’Hanlon, they were the two people I told. And I told the Nolans. I remember Matt telling me, ‘No one actually gives a continental shite who you are when you go over there.’

He said, they probably don’t even know what horse racing is and he said if you want to meet people, you have to stay in hostels, and I was like, no way am I staying in hostels.

But I had to do it. I remember I landed there, I was absolutely shitting myself, everyone thought I’d be home after a week.

I had a flight booked to Sydney and a flight home booked in Melbourne. Other than that I hadn’t a scooby-doo where I was going.

I landed there after a 24-hour flight. I got into a taxi and the driver goes, ‘Where am I bringing you?’ And I said oh fu*k it, I’ll just check into a hotel here. I got chatting to him for a minute and he said, ‘Nah, I’ll bring you to a hostel.’ Then after that, I actually never looked back. I met some incredible people who didn’t care who I was.

Q. So you meet these people in the hostel?

A. Yeah, and they just kind of said oh, what do you do? And you would follow each other on Instagram and next thing they’d look and I’d have whatever, 10,000 or 11,000 followers, and they are like right, who the f**k is this fella?

Because I didn’t go over there saying who I was. It was just nice meeting people, not introducing yourself as Bryan Cooper, the jockey. Not speaking about racing and just get out of that racing bubble. It brought out a side of me that I didn’t even realise I had. I feel it gave me a fairly big eye-opening.

Q. Were you tempted to even go riding out in Australia? Or to go racing or to knock around stables or anything like that?

A. No, I remember I saw a horse one day on the street and I didn’t even want to look at him, I just wanted to zone out and concentrate on me. I was browned off with horses and I was browned off with speaking about them. I just needed to clear my head and figure out what I really wanted to do.

Q. And in that month there, did you think that there was a way back for you?

A. When I came back, I wasn’t even sure if I would come back racing at all. I kind of was in great form when I came back and I was enjoying life.

I said maybe I’ll go do something else. Then I was at home a couple of weeks later, we were schooling and Dad had a runner. Lucky Phil was entered in a race in Gowran and he was, like, ‘Will you ride her?’ And I said no, I don’t want to.

And he just said ‘Go on, if you don’t want to do it after that then don’t do it.’ And then he convinced me, and sure I rode her in Gowran that Saturday. I hadn’t ridden since Galway. This was October, she went and she won.

Then kind of, I had a chat with the Nolans and I said ‘Sure, I’ll potter away there for a while’. I wasn’t going driving around the country, I kind of said I’d tip away till Punchestown and see how things go. I rode a couple of winners and Latest Exhibition came around and next thing I just got extremely hungry again and I started grafting harder than I ever grafted before.

Q. Mrs. Milner got you back into the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure last season. How big was that for you personally?

A. Personally, it was just as good, it would be up there with one of the top winners in Cheltenham because when you get used to riding winners in Cheltenham every year and you go two or three years without one… that drive from Cheltenham to Bristol and sitting in that airport in Bristol or Birmingham on a Friday evening people coming up to you, oh how did you get on? And how you got on is the most horrible place you can ever be, it’s just… it’s depressing, you just get so used to riding winners there.

I felt sorry for the lads who rode their first winners but didn’t get to experience the crowds but, on a personal level for me, it showed that I was back. The work I had put in was rewarded.

Matt Chapman asked me a few questions and I said it as it was, that I had to give myself a kick up the rear end and go working again and you know, I feel that was kind of greatly appreciated by the audience. I got a lot of messages about it as well.

Because there was a lot of doubters out there, people saying that I didn’t want to do it and that I had no interest. And maybe I didn’t. The injuries took their toll, but just to show that I was still able to do it was personally very important to me.

Q. Talk to me about the Paul Nolan stable. Another stable that has come back from a dip.

A. Sure they are great, Paul and James, I’d say without them I’d probably, there’s no way I would be riding because they were the few that stood by me.

I’ve a working relationship and a friendly relationship with them as well. If I was in Wexford, if they had an early start I might go down and stay with them. And you can go for a few pints with them and sit with James and Paul and we can rip the piss out of each other but have a proper business working relationship as well.

They know what I want and I know what I want. They have another few riders in the yard as well and if they give them their couple of rides as well I never crib, or they won’t crib at me if I want to get off one of theirs to ride something else.

They don’t tie me down to instructions and they have a lot of trust in me even when there was no one else there for me, even when I was riding the few winners for them and for no one else.

So I feel they were massively important, they were, no question about it, they were like, up beside Dessie really, as such.

Q. This season you have ridden more than the previous two put together. Plenty of yards, big and small and you are back in demand. Do you feel you are a much stronger jockey now that you have seen the other side and you are back?

A. I think mentally, nowadays I don’t let things bother me as such. If I have a bad day or if I get jocked off a horse I just kind of, I’d go back to thinking, oh sure look, think about them days in Australia.

There’s no point in getting yourself down, it’s only a job at the end of the day.

There’s nothing I can do when I know myself I’m doing my best, and if that’s not good enough then so be it. I’m very grateful, I’ve ridden winners for 15 or 16 different trainers this year, I know I’m never going to ride 100 winners again in a season, bar you get a top job.

So if I can ride 40 to 50 winners and couple of Grade 1s or a Cheltenham Festival winner and a couple of big day races, to me that’s good enough because it’s so competitive in Ireland now.

If you are riding big winners for big trainers, it took me long enough to realise this, but you are better off in with all of them than not with them.

Q. As a jockey, is Cheltenham the absolute Mecca or is it over-played?

A. To me it’s the place you want to be, it catches such a wide audience. It’s the All-Ireland final, the Olympics final, and when you are riding winners there it’s noticed, no matter who you are.

I’ve had 10 but I’d love to add a couple more on to it. So to me it’s, it’s THE biggest place you can ride your winners.

Q. Nearly 10 years on from your breakthrough at the Cheltenham Festival, what advice would you give to the Bryan Cooper of 10 years ago.

A. Oh… probably appreciate it more, appreciate what I got back then and probably be more grateful for the opportunities you have instead of just letting them pass. Work a bit harderm I’d say as well, maybe more so than everything else.

And realise every day could be your last, you know, so just work harder and appreciate the little things a bit more. ?