IT WAS SO FRUSTRATING TRYING TO BEAT McCOY, BUT NOW I’M GOING TO BE KING...
IT MAY go against the grain to look too far ahead in a profession in which your next fence, let alone your next ride, can be your last but if Richard Johnson has circled April 23 on his kitchen calendar he could be forgiven.
That is the date, all being well, that he will be crowned champion jockey for the fi rst time in his 22- year jump racing career. And it will be rich reward fi nally for arguably the most patient man in British sport.
On 16 occasions between 1997 and 2015 Johnson fi nished second to AP McCoy in a stretch the jockey admits, with neat understatement, was “at times somewhat frustrating”.
McCoy’s retirement last April prompted garlands, plaudits and tributes and culminated in a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list for services to racing. Johnson should have got one for persistence.
“As you can imagine, I went through stages of getting frustrated and, not disheartened, but thinking it’s never going to happen. Obviously, in a perfect world, I would have loved to beat AP in a championship,” he says.
“But I am just very lucky to be in a position riding more winners than anybody else, so you have to look at the positives. In fact, this year is the fi rst year there is a trophy for the championship and there is a cash prize [ of £ 15,000]. I’ve been saying to AP, ‘ You’ve done it 20 times but I am going to earn more money out of it in one year than you did in 20’.”
For all that the bonds between these unique sportsmen are unusually strong for an individual sport, with the weighing room closer than most team environments, Johnson’s desire to beat McCoy did not diminish one bit during two decades of trying. “All I ever wanted to do in my career, even when I was a schoolboy, was to be champion jockey,” he says.
“It was not particularly Gold Cups and Grand Nationals for me, it was becoming champion jockey.
“I have won big races at Cheltenham and they are great but to become champion is something you have to work at – a whole season is poured into it – and while having a good horse to ride is brilliant, consistency is what I hope people remember me for.”
Johnson’s racing pedigree always appeared likely to set him on a path towards the weighing room. Born on a cattle and arable farm in Hereford to father Keith, an amateur jockey, and mother Sue, who held a training permit, he started out working summers for David ‘ The Duke’ Nicholson.
For all that he was uncompromising and tough, Johnson credits his mentor with encouraging him to turn professional. He rode his fi rst winner in 1994 and became champion conditional jockey aged 18 in 1995. The intervening years have done nothing to dim his enthusiasm or fi tness.
Johnson and McCoy were not too far away from each other in that respect. Both were relentless, driving and aggressive in the saddle.
“He changed the way younger jockeys ride today,” says Johnson. “Neither of us mind pushing them for three miles if we thought we had a chance.”
Such success brought inevitable criticism for both, with their hammer- and- anvil approach perhaps unfairly compared to the quieter style of the likes of Ruby Walsh.
Johnson, in particular, was often targeted for the number of fallers he rode. “I have always been an aggressive jockey and sometimes it doesn’t end well,” he says. “There has always been
a fi ne line and some days I would be the fi rst to say I got it wrong. But while I have made my share of mistakes, as you get older you get wiser .”
As he looks forward to the season’s highlight at Cheltenham, which starts in just under a month, he does so with a good enough book of rides but, more importantly, with a comfortable enough lead – 192 to 112 – over Aidan Coleman in this year’s title race to already be thinking about a second next year.
Having reached 3,000 of his own last month, talk of chasing down Tony McCoy’s 4,358 career winners is met with a shake of the head. “It is probably unrealistic for all that it would be a lovely ambition,” he says. “I have no intention of stopping but I am 38 now and AP was 40 when he retired.
“I intend to ride on as long as I am wanted but after that it is the family farm for me if my dad and brother can fi nd something for me to do.”
The true measure of the man widely known as ‘ Dickie’ is not in the numbers of winners or the smile on his face now, but the one which did not leave when he was coming second to McCoy for all those years. It will make his belated coronation all the more special in April.