Having announced his impending retirement over the weekend, champion jockey Tony McCoy was riding at Catterick yesterday. Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson joined the sporting great as he made what could well prove to be his final visit to North Yorkshire

 

DURING a 23-year career that will end with him firmly established as one of the greatest British sportsmen of all time, Tony McCoy has partnered some fantastic horses to victory.

But he’s also won on plenty of average ones, and so it was that two days after he announced his intention to retire at the end of the season, and a day after he claimed yet another Grade One success on board Carlingford Lough at Leopardstown, the most successful jockey in the history of National Hunt racing found himself pitching up at Catterick for two rides on a seven-race card.

He could have been at home with his feet up. He could have been doing a tour of racing’s corporate sponsors, many of whom will be eager to throw money at a charming 40-year-old who has transcended the traditional boundaries of his sport to achieve much wider acclaim.

But instead, he did what he has been doing for more than two decades. He woke at the crack of dawn, travelled more than half the length of the country, and despite the two races he was involved in being worth a cumulative total of less than £11,000, he gave everything in pursuit of another winner. That he achieved one with his first ride of the afternoon only seemed fitting.

That, more than anything else, is what makes McCoy so special. Forget the big-race victories such as the 2010 Grand National success with Don’t Push It or the Gold Cup triumph with Synchronised. Forget the 30 Cheltenham Festival triumphs or even the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award that confirmed his talents had finally been adequately acknowledged. Remember instead the days such as yesterday, when McCoy partnered Dewala to claim a Class Four contest that would not have been notable at all had it not been for the identity of the man riding the winner.

It is that relentless drive and unquenchable pursuit of victory that has set McCoy apart from his peers. Other jockeys, most notably his great rival Ruby Walsh, might claim more big-race successes over the course of a season, but they have reached a stage in their career where they are happy to pick and choose their rides.

Not McCoy. In the eyes of the 19-time champion jump jockey, who will be celebrating a 20th triumph when he rides off into the sunset in April, one winner is every bit as notable as any other. They still count the same in the record books, and they still mean as much to the weekday punters who have been championing McCoy from the moment he claimed his first win on English soil at Exeter in 1994. Why look anywhere else when AP is there, steeling himself for a flourish in the final furlong?

“It’s what champions do,” was McCoy’s response when he was recently asked why he continued to zigzag across the country to partner anything that had a chance of getting past the winning post, and the same answer helps explain how he has continually been able to recover from a succession of major injuries that would surely have broken any other sportsman.

Speaking at the weekend, the Northern Irishman explained how he secretly enjoyed bouncing back from a fall because it provided him with a challenge to overcome. Well in that case, the list of challenges he has seen off is staggering, encompassing broken legs, arms, ankles, wrists, shoulder blades, collar bones, vertebrae, ribs and cheekbones. Oh, and a couple of punctured lungs. Who else would shrug that off as “part of the working week”?

McCoy fell on Saturday, at the first flight of the race after he announced his retirement, and hit the turf again on Sunday in a novice chase. For all that he will retire with more than 4,000 winners to his name, he will also have the memory of more than twice as many bruises.

Yet he has always returned for more, and after negotiating a succession of well wishers and autograph hunters on his way to the paddock yesterday afternoon, he clambered aboard Dewala, an unremarkable handicap hurdler who had won just one of her previous seven starts for trainer Michael Appleby.

Had anyone else been in the saddle, she would probably have been a 5-1 shot. As it was, she was backed in to 2-1 favouritism, such is the power of the ‘McCoy factor’. In truth, the money was never in doubt.

Supremely confident from the off, McCoy placed Dewala into the lead as the field passed over the first flight and led his opponents on a merry dance from that point onwards. Six lengths clear approaching the last, there was no need for a typical McCoy rousting in the final furlong, just a gentle nudge to ensure Dewala did not dive too far to the left going over the last.

Cheered to the rafters as he entered the winners’ enclosure, McCoy quickly changed silks to partner Red Devil Boys in the next. Another horse that hardly deserved to be at the head of the market on its previous form; another short-priced favourite thanks to AP.

Would we witness yet another McCoy double on what could well prove his final visit to North Yorkshire? Sadly not. A mistake four out left Red Devil Boys with a lot of ground to make up on Saint Are, a much more experienced campaigner who is likely to line up in April’s Grand National, and while McCoy got to work at the top of the home straight, his mount eventually faded to finish fourth. Even the best scripts occasionally go awry.

All that was left was for McCoy to receive a hastily-arranged memento in the winners’ enclosure, before explaining his retirement decision to a Monday-afternoon crowd that was far healthier than it would have been had he not been present.

“I thought about five years ago that if I got to 20 jockeys’ championships, that would be a good time to retire,” he said. “Sport doesn’t wait for anyone, and it’s not going to wait for me.

“It’s been an emotional few days. I’m going to miss being able to ride good horses, but the reception I got at Leopardstown over the weekend was incredible and I’m going to miss that. I know I can’t last forever though, and I just want to enjoy what’s left for me.”

And with that, he was gone. Into the weighing room and on to his next challenge. And McCoy being McCoy, that means three rides at Ayr this afternoon.