Tony McCoy’s hopes of becoming the first jockey to ride 300 winners in a season appear to be over following the news that his recent injury problems have forced him on to the sidelines for another fortnight, just as the jumps season kicks into gear.
Losing the chance to set new records may be the least of the 40-year-old’s concerns, however, since this particular injury saga has been rumbling on for almost a month and is bound to raise the question of how much longer McCoy can continue to cope with such a physically demanding line of work.
The extraordinarily ambitious target of 300 almost became realistic during the summer, when he seemed to be riding a double or treble every time he turned up at the races. For it to be feasible he had to be on 150 by mid-October, McCoy told friends, and indeed his 150th success came on 15 October at Wetherby.
But in riding that finish he aggravated injuries he had sustained in a Worcester fall the week before, popping out a collar bone, and was stood down for the rest of the afternoon, missing three winning rides. Though he was passed fit to return days later, McCoy has had just two winners since, at which pace he would not even make 200 winners before the season ends in April.
Dougie Costello, who rode in the Worcester race, told the Irish Post of the course doctor’s initial suspicion that McCoy had broken ribs. “Ten minutes later, AP walks back into the weighing room with a drip in his hand and the colours still on him,” Costello said. “The first thing he asked for was a cup of tea with 10 sugars. When you see that, you think: ‘You are nuts.’ ”
There was a similar scene at Exeter on Tuesday when McCoy took an awkward tumble which provoked wincing among those who knew of his travails. But he walked into the weighing room under his own power, showing no sign of pain and signing an autograph before immediately donning his silks for the next race.
We are now told that incident aggravated his existing pain. McCoy saw a sports-medicine specialist on Thursday and was advised to take some time off. He was quoted as saying it would “probably be two weeks before I go back and see him”, meaning he will miss the three-day meeting at Cheltenham next week and possibly the Betfair Chase at Haydock the following weekend.
The saga raises questions about whether McCoy should have been passed fit to ride at any stage since the Worcester fall. He has looked uncharacteristically awkward on occasion and been beaten on at least two horses which onlookers felt might have won had the rider been at the peak of his powers, unfair as it may be to expect that standard from him every time he rides.
The British Horseracing Authority clarified the process by which McCoy was passed fit after the Worcester fall and again after being stood down at Wetherby. “Once reports were provided by his GP and a specialist, his return to race-riding had to be approved by Dr Hill, chief medical adviser. Clearance would not have been granted by the CMA if there were any concerns over his fitness to ride.”
McCoy had a single booked ride here, for the card on which he sensationally achieved his 4,000th winner last year. Since he chose to give up the ride the rules do not require him to be passed fit before he can ride again. But in the circumstances, the BHA is likely to insist on his going through that process once more. The bookmaker 32Red, which had been offering odds of 100-30 about him reaching 300 winners this season, took that market down on Thursday night.
Between races here, Sam Twiston-Davies explained that all jump jockeys expect to ride through pain from time to time. “We’re very lucky in that we’ve got really good physios at the races, they look after us really well. The doctors are class, they won’t let you ride if they don’t think you’re fit.
“In the modern era, every jockey wants to ride. It’s our livelihoods, we don’t get paid unless we go out and ride. The thing is, in that weighing room there are so many hungry jockeys. You know if, for a day, you don’t ride that one horse, if it wins, you may never get on that horse again.
“There’s always that inside of you, masking the pain so that you go out there and ride that horse again. If it goes well, you’re delighted, but obviously there’s some times when you’re a little bit sore and you’re not probably doing yourself justice.
“It’ll always be the way, being a jockey, that you’ll always, always, always want to ride. Every jockey now has that hunger that they go through it.
“You ride through man flu or colds or all of that and you do it all for the big days, you ride through the sores and the pains through the fact that you might, that day, be riding the next Cheltenham horse, the next big thing.
“That’s why AP does it. He’s so hungry, he’s always wanting to find the new ammo for next year, the good horses for the future. Every lad will tell you, everyone wants to be racing.
“Although you ride with a bit of pain, when you’re out there, it’s gone. You don’t feel it, you become numb to it, because you’re enjoying yourself, you’re in a nice rhythm, you’re jumping, you’re thinking about everything else. It’s only till you pull up, you go, actually, that’s a bit sore. The adrenaline of the whole day is your own best medicine.”
There was news about another injured rider yesterday when Alan King trained a winner and spoke about his long-time stable jockey Robert Thornton, out of action since the spring. King said a fractured vertebra in Thornton’s back had healed but that another fracture had been discovered in the jockey’s neck after he had resumed riding out and schooling.
That fracture has now been given a month in the hope that it would also heal and Thornton is awaiting the results of another scan which was recently sent to a London-based specialist.
