THAT’S IT FROM ME
Time waits for no man says 4,322-time winner AP McCoy
MOMENTS after his granite-jawed defiance on Mr Mole secured the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury yesterday the mask on the ironman, Tony McCoy, slipped. Wearing the gold and green silks of his long-time retainer, JP McManus, McCoy spoke of the ‘hardest decision’ he’s ever had to make, as he prepares to hang up his whip in 11 weeks, just ahead of his 41st birthday.
‘Time waits for no man in sport, it’s not going to wait for me,’ he said.
McCoy’s final riding engagements will be at Punchestown Festival, from April 28 to May 2, where his presence at the Co. Kildare track will pack in the punters, many of whom a financial debt to the lean machine from Moneyglass, Antrim.
Before that, he rides at Leopardstown today where racegoers will acknowledge the most resilient hombre ever to sit on a saddle. He was hailed as ‘the best we have ever seen’ by trainer Martin Pipe, with whom he shared so many title triumphs over the years.
Never a stylist like John Francome, or a stealthy tracker like Ruby Walsh, McCoy could stimulate horses like no other pilot, and his will to win was immense. Winning was his motivation and he did whatever it took, to push himself and the horseflesh underneath him, to be first past the post – which he has done 4,322 times.
His gritty ride on Wichita Lineman at the Cheltenham Festival in 2009 illustrated his refusal to accept the inevitable as he bullied a winning response from an impossible position. The Ulsterman spent two and a half hours of every day in the sauna, to stay in racing trim. He ate like a sparrow, yet lunged like a hawk when he spotted prey.
He was hewn from girders and pushed his body to the limit, never more so than seven years ago after he fractured two vertebrae in a crashing fall. To ensure his return for Cheltenham, he spent time enduring temperatures of minus 150 degrees during kriotherapy treatment. At the t me he remarked: ‘I think I’m unbreakable so I wasn’t lying there thinking the worst, you can’t think like that.’ In any race, McCoy could be picked out, with his tall, l ean frame, sunken cheeks and impassive stony face. And when it came to the business end, no one flailed with greater effort.
Countless times he dragged unwilling partners to the line through an amalgam of intense physical energy and sheer bloody-mindedness.
After clocking up his 200th winner for the 20th straight season on Mr Mole, McCoy broke the news yesterday. ‘It’s going to be the last time I ride 200 winners,’ he said. ‘Having spoken to Dave (Roberts, his agent) and JP McManus, I am going to be retiring at the end of the season. I want to go out at top, I want to go out as champion jockey and it will be my 20th year if I can win the jockeys’ championship. This is without a doubt the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.’
McCoy added: ‘I’ve been dreading this day, and if I’m honest, I still can’t quite imagine a life without racing.
‘I’m probably the only person in the world that will miss bouncing off the ground. That’s what challenges you in life and that is what has challenged me.
‘I wanted to retire while I was champion jockey and I thought 20 championships was a good number,’ he added. ‘Time waits for no man in sport. It’s not going to wait for me.
‘I love riding and the thrill of it, it’s what has challenged me for the last 25 years so I will miss it. I will never find anything that will replace that buzz, but I’m aware in sport that you can’t go on forever.
‘There are so many people to thank – my mum and dad, the late Billy Rock, the late Toby Balding and his wife, Jim Bolger, JP and Noreen (McManus) have been fantastic,’ he said.
After serving his apprenticeship with Bolger, McCoy never looked back after riding his first winner in England in 1994 and enjoyed fruitful partnerships with Pipe, trainer Jonjo O’Neill and owner McManus. He became the fastest jockey to 200 winners in a season in 1998 and the quickest to 1,000 career wins.
In 2002, he broke the 55-year-old record of Gordon Richards for most winners in a season and went on to claim 289 winners in that campaign. His big-race wins include two Cheltenham Gold Cups, the Champion Hurdle and the Champion Chase among 30 Festival winners.
After 15 failed attempts, an emotional first Grand National victory at Aintree came his way in 2010 when he rode O’Neill and McManus’s Don’t Push It to victory.
When it came to riding horses, McCoy was guaranteed to push, always. He was at it again yesterday when Mr Mole jinked at the tape and spun around, losing around a dozen lengths to his rivals, including the two-mile champion Sire De Grugy.
Some jocks might have called it quits but McCoy galvanised a good horse into doing great things.
He won readily. It was a snapshot of a career without parallel.