McCoy relaxes by the changing room (photo by racingfotos.com)
Voltaire once said that ‘By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property’. I think that lies at the heart of our fascination for people who excel at what they do. Truly great people (or horses) somehow lift and inspire us to believe that we too can become great merely by association.
My favourite illustration of this was when that famous American racemare Zenyatta had her farewell appearance at Keeneland a few years ago. Her fans turned up in droves, braving snow, freezing temperatures and a 2 hour delay for an audience with their hero.
As she was led around the ring, groom Mario Espinoza stopped here and there to allow a lucky few to reach out and touch that famous mahogany coat. After she was led away and the crowd started dispersing into the night, one young woman was left marvelling “I actually touched her!” Her friends stopped to thread their hands through hers, laughing, as if wanting to pick up whatever it is that makes Zenyatta special.
Like the young woman at Keeneland, I think we all want to touch greatness in the hope that some of it might rub off, so it is my eternal good fortune that when extraordinary people do extraordinary things, I have an excuse to interview them and try to appreciate and perhaps pick up a little of their excellence.
Thursday, 7 November 2013 saw Tony McCoy cross the line aboard Mountain Tunes at Towcester to clock up his 4000th win. As excellence goes, it doesn’t get a lot better than that, so I did a bit of ringing around and Friday afternoon had me nervously waiting for the scheduled time to put through my call. After a few rings, it connected and I found myself talking to Tony McCoy.
0-4000
Anthony Peter McCoy was born in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland on 4 May 1974. “My dad who is a builder kind of got an interest in horses when he was young and none of his family were interested, but he decided that he maybe wanted to get a horse and that’s what he did.
He got a bit of land at home and he decided that he wanted to get a horse for the land. And from a pretty young age I liked looking at the horse and decided that I wanted to ride it someday and ended up getting a pony and that’s pretty much how is how it started, you know.
I’m not from a particularly horsey area or a horsey background either, but luckily my dad in his younger days decided for some bizarre reason that he wanted to get a horse.”
Initially aiming for a career on the flat, McCoy grew too tall (currently standing 5’10.5 and riding at 10 stone 5lbs / approx. 66.6kgs) and opted for the National Hunt instead. He had his first ride aboard Nordic Touch at Phoenix Park in September 1990 and registered his first win in 1992 aged just 17.
He initially rode for Jim Bolger in Ireland and then moved to England in 1994. A successful first season as a conditional jockey for Toby Balding saw him win the Conditional Jump Jockeys title with a record 74 winners in 1994/95.
It earned him the attention of the likes of Paul Nicholls and Martin Pipe. He rode for the Pipe yard from 1997, before accepting a retainer from powerful owner J.P. McManus in 2004. Crowned Champion Jockey for the first time in 1995/6, McCoy has been Champion Jockey every year since and the close of the current season will see him retain the title for a staggering 19th year in a row.
He has won two Gold Cups, the English, Welsh, Irish, Midlands and Scottish Grand Nationals and just about every other big race on offer. He is the leading jumps jockey of all time, he has an MBE, an OBE, 2 autobiographies, a novel and a haunted house!
But who is the man behind the stats?
McCoy after winning Cheltenham Gold Cup on Synchronised (photo by racingfotos.com)
His voice is wonderfully shaped and accented by the Northern Ireland of his birth and he speaks quickly, so I have to strain my unpractised ear not to miss things. What was it like crossing that line on Thursday? “It was a relief. It’s a relief when I win any race because I think it might be the last one I’m ever going to win! It was a fantastic day, you know? And it couldn’t have happened any better really to be honest.
“For the last few days I was fairly adamant that I wanted to ride my 4000th winner for J.P. and for Jonjo because I’ve had the best days of my career for both Jonjo and for J.P., so I felt it was only right. Riding my 4000th winner was most definitely going to be one of the best days of my career. My daughter Eve, as I said to J.P. a few days ago, is totally convinced that every time she sees the green and gold colours on TV, that it’s actually me and that they’re my colours, but they’re actually J.P.’s colours, they’re not actually Daddy’s.
“But it was important and Eve was very keen on me having my 4000th win in those colours as well. My agent, Dave Roberts, his father passed away on Wednesday, but Dave came and said his dad would have wanted him to be here and I believe he probably would have done. He’s booked me on every single winner I’ve ever ridden, so I’m very pleased that Dave was here.”
The toughest contender in one of the toughest careers there is
I read a great little quote recently that boxing is the only sport that you don’t play. You play football, cricket and rugby. But you are a boxer. It is not a game. The shadow of death and the possibility of long-term physical and mental damage sees to that.
But the same could easily be said of jockeys and probably doubly so about jump jockeys. In a career widely acknowledged as one of the toughest around, Tony McCoy’s reputation for being physically tough borders on the legendary. He has broken most of the bones in his body and last year famously received 20 stitches and 2 broken teeth after being kicked in the face by a horse at Wetherby. He was back at work the next day.
“I’m as successful at riding as at getting to the ambulance! With each fall I always think that’s the last one. I still think I’m unbreakable. I guess I’m not the sharpest,” he says drily.
“Obviously at times physically it’s quite a demanding sport with injuries and that. Sometimes I find that a challenge, but I try to see how quickly I can get back from a particular injury. You always try and put a timeframe on it. Whatever a doctor tells you, you always think ‘I can beat whatever time you’re telling me’. So I like to challenge myself. I don’t want to be like everyone else.
“I want to do things that people haven’t done before, or that someone else hasn’t done. People say things can’t be done and I like to give it a go and try and do things that people say can’t be done. Because nothing is impossible. Nothing’s impossible.” This inability to resist a challenge that saw him spend a record-setting 3 minutes in a kriotherapy room.
“I fractured 2 of my vertebrae in 2008 and used the kriotherapy as a little bit of rehab, both mentally and physically. I asked what the coldest temperature was that someone had managed to stay at and it was minus about 145 or something like that, so I decided that I was going to go for minus 150 while I was there. I did stay in, but I got pretty bad burns from the cold, so it’s not very advisable. Not one of my brighter ideas, that’s for sure!”
What keeps him motivated?
“It’s all about winning. That’s what gives you the buzz. But I’ve learnt to enjoy it more as I’ve got older. When I was younger I thought it was my divine right to ride the best horses and win more than anyone else. Now I know that you have to work at it. No-one really cares about yesterday. To be continually successful, you have to work hard. No matter how much talent you get, it won’t keep you there forever.”
“I’ve always set myself goals and targets ‘cause it gives me something to keep me focussed and you know I think you need to be chasing things otherwise you go into the comfort zone and float through life and you’re not challenging yourself as much as you should.
“My goal for the last 3 or 4 years has been to ride 4000 winners. I want to be champion jockey at the end of the season and then that will be my 19th year. Whether I want to win 20 in a row is another thing. I need to be happy that I’m still able to compete at a high level and still as good as I was, but that’s always been the case. I always need to prove to myself that I’m as good as I was, you know, but I’ve been like that for 18 years.”
“You have to keep level because no matter how lucky you are, you’re not always going to be successful. I heard a good saying years ago ‘Never let praise or criticism get to you.’ It’s as important how you deal with the good as the bad. When I go home at night after not having any winners, I have the fear of failure that I’m sure lots of people have and I can’t wait for the next day to have another go.
“I need the next day to come again because I need to get out there and I need to prove to myself that I’m as good as I was the day before yesterday when I had some winners, you know? It does get to you. That’s the side of the sport that I should think is incurable.”
Career highlight
Winning the Grand National on Don’t Push It 2010 (photo by racingfotos.com)
“My most cherished achievement was beating Sir Gordon Richards’ all time record for number of winners in a season. Sir Richards was 26 times champion flat jockey, he’s the most successful jockey that’s ever been, his record of 269 winners a season was there for 55 years.” McCoy bettered it in 2002, achieving a new high of 289 and he says “That will always be my greatest achievement”.
It’s hard to imagine anyone equalling, nevermind surpassing what McCoy has achieved, but he’s philosophical. “In any walk of life, no matter how successful you are, someone’s always going to win more. There is always someone that’s more successful. There may not be someone right now, but there will be. I just hope I’m not alive when it does happen!”
SA Fan base
When I tell him a little about South Africa and how many fans here at home were cheering him home, he lights up and tells me that he’d celebrated Thursday’s win with Richard Hughes, due here later this week for our International Jockey Challenge. They’d chatted about the trip and McCoy reports “He says it’s always great fun, so I was very jealous that he was getting to go to South Africa and I wasn’t. In a few years’ time when I’ve retired, I might tag along and come for a bit of sunshine with him.” Hopefully some of the organisers out there are reading this!
“What a hero, what a sportsman, what a jockey!” Those were the words that saw Tony McCoy over the line to his 4000th career win, aboard Mountain Tunes at Towcester last Thursday. It has taken around 5 years for AP to collect each 1000 wins and given the demands of the sport it’s unlikely that we’ll see him (or anyone else for that matter) reach 5000, so it was a privilege and an honour to touch greatness in some small measure. I stretch out my hands and hope to share a little of it with you.
– Robyn Louw
