As if there wasn’t enough pressure on Tony McCoy to succeed at his very last Cheltenham Festival the week after next, a well-attended press conference was held here on Friday so he could be questioned at length about his best chances of valedictory glory. It was the sort of thing, as he freely admitted, that the younger McCoy would have done almost anything to avoid.
“I was a little bit wrapped up in myself. It was all about riding horses and riding winners and what else went on in the world wasn’t important to me,” he said, recalling the single-minded approach that so stunned the sport as he established himself 20 years ago. “I know racing has been very good to me and if I can give a little bit back, then I should.”
A man with his history of injuries needs no reminding that participation in the Festival cannot be taken for granted, so long as there is another novice chaser to be ridden somewhere else. Even a fairly minor bone break, if sustained this week, would deny him the much anticipated farewell to Cheltenham, but he is clear that he will retire at some point in the next two months, whatever happens, that there will be no going back and that such thoughts are not allowed to cloud his focus whenever he goes out to ride.
“When I get on a horse, I don’t think about retirement. I’ve never had it in my mind, to go out on a horse and think that I’m retiring. I want to go out and win, I want to beat the fella beside me. I know that in the next couple of months, I am going to get falls and some of them are going to be bad but it’s no different than it has been for the last 20 years.”
McCoy’s plan for this year’s Festival is to “enjoy it the best I can”. This is met with scepticism from Luke Harvey, who leads the questioning. A former jump jockey now making a second career telling jokes against himself and others on At The Races, Harvey suggests McCoy must be terrified about the prospect of ending the week with no winners.
“I wouldn’t want you as my psychologist, would I?” responds McCoy, joining in the laughter but also unwilling to dwell. “I hadn’t actually thought about coming out of Cheltenham without any winners, so we’ll move on from that.” Harvey presses. “Can we talk about something else?”
He is reminded about an ambition first stated more than a decade ago, to notch at least one success in all the Festival races in which he is eligible to ride. Has he kept track of that ambition? Of course he has.
“I haven’t won the World Hurdle or the Triumph Hurdle. There’s five or six to go.” So he’s ready to let go of that particular target? “Not really, no,” says McCoy, laughing again, but meaning it. “I’ve still got chances.”
His Triumph ride is likely to be Hargam, who carries the green and gold colours of McCoy’s main employer, JP McManus, and is currently second-favourite. But the jockey’s loyalty to McManus may actually deny him a winning chance in the World Hurdle.
“At the moment, I think At Fishers Cross is going to be running in the World Hurdle. If he does, I’ll be riding him.” But McCoy concedes that the horse’s recent form has not been anywhere near good enough and there is a dream ride in the race, aboard Rock On Ruby, currently going begging. In the circumstances, it would be no surprise and surely no one could complain if At Fishers Cross were to drop out, though the jockey does not say so himself.
“I think Jezki [in the Champion Hurdle] is my best ride because, well, he’s one of the shortest priced horses that I’ve got to ride. And purely because he’s the reigning champion and, if you look back down through the last 20 years of the Champion Hurdle, a lot of the names that were involved in the finish will be involved the following year.”
McManus has masses of entries in the Festival’s novice hurdles and handicaps and it appears there is plenty of horse-trading still to be done in this area. McCoy says he has no idea what he will ride in those races yet but, with a slight sickness, acknowledges that he will have some difficult choices to make. “There’s no doubt there’s going to be one or two that I’m going to ride the wrong one.” But, he says, the injured Cup Final will not run in the Pertemps.
He is asked if he will need a new project in retirement. Richard Dunwoody trekking through Antarctica or Jonny Wilkinson learning the piano are suggested as examples. “You mean, I’ll be playing the piano at the South Pole?” he asks.
“What am I going to do that’s going to challenge me, I honestly don’t know. I think that’s the same with a lot of sportspeople, they struggle when they retire and I probably am not going to be any different. I’ll just have to cope as best I can. I’m going to try and be happy playing golf and doing things I’ve never done before.”
So you’ll be begging for an invitation to the Festival next year, Harvey asks. “If you don’t invite me, I’ll rock up anyway.”
Multiple champion jockey’s Festival fancies
Jezki Won last year’s Champion Hurdle, when McCoy chose to ride the runner-up. Winless this winter but comes alive at Cheltenham
Mr Mole Formerly thought of as a moody customer, has been a revelation this winter and fancied by some for an open Champion Chase
Hargam Unbeaten in two races under McCoy, including one at Cheltenham, Nicky Henderson’s horse is 6-1 second-favourite for the Triumph Hurdle
Carlingford Lough Gave McCoy a first success in the Irish Hennessy this month. Only fifth in the betting for the Gold Cup and still has some improving to do
