Tony McCoy, who returned from three weeks on the sidelines with a winner on his only ride here on Wednesday, said afterwards that he believes he is now “a million [to one]” to become the first jockey to ride 300 winners in a season.
McCoy decided to take a break from race-riding on 5 November, having struggled for more than a week to overcome the lingering effects of a heavy fall in late October.
He looked much more like the rider who has dominated National Hunt racing for two decades as he steered Southfield Royale, the 2-1 second-favourite, to victory in the two-and-a-half mile novice hurdle which opened the Fontwell card, beating Coologue, the 1-2 favourite, into second place.
McCoy confirmed his fitness in time for the three-day Hennessy meeting which opens at Newbury on Thursday, and in particular to ride More Of That, the World Hurdle winner at Cheltenham in March, at the track on Saturday, but the target of 300 winners, which he was around 5-1 to achieve before his three-week break, now looks beyond him.
“It’s a million,” McCoy said. “You’d never say never, but realistically it’s a million. One of the lads said to me that I’m 10-1 [to reach 300 winners], but it’s a million. You’d need to ride seven winners every week. I did think it was possible at the time, I really thought it was possible and that was the reason I kept going when I did. But you never know, I might get an amazing run.”
Jonjo O’Neill, who provides McCoy with more mounts than any other trainer, said at a recent press morning that he felt the jockey had tried to get back into the saddle too soon earlier this month, a view that McCoy now endorses.
“I know I shouldn’t have done, but I wanted to ride 300 winners and I couldn’t afford to have the days off,” McCoy said. “It was purely mind over matter and the body doing what the brain was telling it rather than the other way around. So I finally got to the point where I had to accept that it wasn’t physically possible to do what I was doing, as I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.
“It does frustrate you, but at the end of the day I’m probably a bit more realistic now than I was when I was younger. I’m a jump jockey, so I’m going to get hurt and injured, and you’ve just got to accept the fact that it’s going to happen. It’s still not easy or enjoyable but it’s part of the job, and all I will do is annoy myself even more if I worry about it.
“If I’d really rushed it I could have been back at the weekend, but this is probably the first time in my life that I’ve been injured and come back and actually felt all right.
“I didn’t actually miss an awful lot of big winners while I was off, I know that Uxizandre won at [the Open meeting at] Cheltenham but I would have been in Ireland that day anyway to ride Jezki [who finished second behind Hurricane Fly].”
O’Neill’s Merry King attracted support for the Hennessy with several bookmakers on Wednesday following confirmation that McCoy is likely to take the ride, but can still be backed at 16-1 for Saturday’s big race. Denis O’Regan has been booked to ride the current second-favourite Smad Place for Alan King, while Noel Fehily will partner Unioniste for Paul Nicholls, whose stable jockey Sam Twiston-Davies will be aboard last year’s runner-up, Rocky Creek.
