James Bowen: the youngest jockey to win the Welsh Grand National

Last updated 8 September 2026. Career details verified against published racing records.

James Bowen holds a record that will take some beating. He won the Welsh Grand National at 16, which makes him the youngest jockey ever to do it, and he did it on the oldest horse to win the race since the war.

The basics

Raz De Maree, January 2018

The 2017 running of the Welsh Grand National was postponed by the weather and run at Chepstow in the January. Bowen, a 16-year-old conditional, took the ride on Raz De Maree for the Irish trainer Gavin Cromwell and won Wales’ biggest race over 3 miles 6½ furlongs and 23 fences.

Raz De Maree was 13 years old, the oldest winner of the race since the Second World War. A teenager and a veteran, in the mud, in the biggest race in the country.

Later that year he became the youngest ever champion conditional jockey, taking a record that had belonged to his brother Sean.

Two records, both about age

Bowen’s career started faster than almost anyone’s. The Welsh Grand National came at 16. The champion conditional title came the same year, and the record he broke to get it belonged to his own brother.

A conditional is a jump racing apprentice, riding with a weight allowance until they have ridden enough winners to lose it. Winning that title at 16 means beating riders several years older who have been at it longer.

The flip side of starting that young is that the rest of the career has to live with it. He has been a professional jockey for the better part of a decade and is still only in his mid-twenties.

The dead-heat

In December 2024 the brothers produced something neither had managed in thousands of rides against each other. In the Triumph Hurdle Trial at Cheltenham, James kicked clear on Quantock Hills and Sean came from fourth at the last on Teriferma to catch him exactly on the line. A dead-heat. They fist-bumped when the result was called.

Where he rides now

James rides across the jumps circuit rather than for one yard, taking rides for his father Peter, his brother Mickey and a spread of outside trainers. His winners come at the sort of tracks that make up a jump jockey’s actual working year: Lingfield, Fontwell, Taunton, Windsor.

Being the brother of the champion jockey is a hard shadow to ride in. The Welsh National record is his alone.

Backing him

A rider without a single retained yard is often better value than a stable jockey, because the market prices the horse rather than the name. Odds on his rides are on the DragonBet horse racing page, with the betting glossary for any term you need.

More Welsh jockey profiles: Sean Bowen and Ben Jones.

Sources: race records and career detail per published racing sources; dead-heat quote from DragonBet’s own reporting, December 2024. Correct as of 8 September 2026.