MCCOY: I’D GIVE IT ALL BACK TO RIDE AGAIN
Former champion jockey reveals the agony of his retirement: I’d give it all back if I could ride again for a year...
FOR a few minutes on Friday afternoon, AP McCoy was back in the saddle again. The greatest jump jockey there has ever been was racing once more. He was back doing what he loved, what he has missed and missed and missed since he retired at the top with a 20th successive jockeys’ title nearly two years ago.
He put the balls of his feet in the stirrups and kept his mount towards the back of the field. He was on Harmonic Way in the Wokingham Handicap and soon the old grandstands at Ascot came into view. McCoy began to push and Harmonic Way accelerated through the tightly bunched field and crossed the line first. McCoy allowed himself a smile.
He climbed down off the equiciser, a riding simulator at the British Racing School near Newmarket. In front of the mechanical horse the video screen, which he had been gazing at as he rode, froze. Then Ascot was wiped away. The machine rebooted, ready for someone else to have a go on Harmonic Way. Just for a little while, McCoy kept himself in the moment.
‘He was the kind of horse that, when he got to the front, he stopped,’ said McCoy. ‘So you have to fix on the horse in the field that is going to take you the furthest so that you can hit the front late. It was like a game of hide and seek with Harmonic Way. He didn’t want to be found.’
It was April 2015 when McCoy rode his last race. He was presented with his final jockeys’ championship trophy in the parade ring at Sandown. He finished third on Box Office in the 4.15. When the race was run, he rode the horse slowly in front of the grandstand and its cheering spectators. In the press marquee afterwards, he said he was dreading retirement.
It has been every bit as difficult as he feared. Some greet the end of their sporting careers with relief. Many more mourn its passing and find themselves struggling for purpose. McCoy is one of the majority. He is not one for platitudes. He never spared himself as a jockey and he does not spare himself as a man. Not being part of the sport any more is torturing him. ‘I’d love it to be starting again,’ he said. ‘I’d love to have it all ahead of me. I’d give it all back tomorrow. I’d give it all back, even now, if I could even just change my name and go back riding for another year or two without anyone knowing it was me. I’d love to do that. I think I’d be a lot better. ‘I have moments all the time when I wonder if I did the right thing. I schooled two horses at Jonjo O’Neill’s yard yesterday, More of That and Minella Rocco. Both of them are running in the Cheltenham Gold Cup later this month. I’d have given my arm to be riding one of them in the Gold Cup. ‘I jumped 10 fences on More of That and 10 fences on Minella Rocco. And I rode them thinking “I could ride these in the Gold Cup”. And then Jonjo said “I know you could ride them, too” and I thought “That’d be nice”. It sucks you in. ‘I was driving back from Jonjo’s and I was thinking “Oh God, I’d love to ride More of That in the Gold Cup”. But at the same time, I got a little buzz from riding him, too. I rode him over 10 fences and I was beaming afterwards. It was like someone had just given me a little shot of something. ‘Very few sportspeople go out at the very top. It’s a hard thing to do. It kills you. I was always stubborn enough to say this was my choice and this was what was going to happen. I would love to go out and ride More of That in the Gold Cup if I just thought no one would take any notice. But sadly, I can’t. The only fellow that made a successful comeback was God, really.’
McCoy was a genius, of course. And like many geniuses, he was an obsessive. He worked and worked. He rode and rode. He refused to take short cuts. Ever. It is one of the things that still makes him such a compelling character. He has not lost his dynamism or his drive. There is a clear sense of a man who has an awful lot of energy. He just doesn’t know what to do with it.
Sometimes, McCoy talks as if he is describing paradise lost. He knows he is lucky in many ways. It is a sign of a dangerous sport when an ambulance follows the competitors round the course. McCoy had a lot of falls and broke a lot of bones. But he walked away. He can play football with his son, Archie, and with his mates on a Sunday morning.
He does the school run more now but he does not pretend he is wallowing happily in domesticity. Last year, he went to Augusta with his friend, the Irish racehorse owner and businessman JP McManus, to watch the practice rounds before the US Masters. ‘That was brilliant,’ he said. He watches a lot of live sport. He and McManus were planning to go the David Haye-Tony Bellew fight last night. But it doesn’t scratch the itch.
A few weeks ago, he had dinner with another recently-retired sporting great, Paul O’Connell. He won’t divulge the details of their conversation but it was clear that one of the topics they discussed was life after sport.
McCoy was reassured. ‘I felt glad it wasn’t just me,’ he said. ‘I saw a lot of myself in him.’
McCoy still grieves for the life that has gone. ‘There are days I get up and if I am at home any more than two days, I need to get out,’ he says. ‘I got up in the morning every
I was asked to teach young lads to ride, but thought: ‘What if they get more winners than me?’
day for 20 years with fear in my soul. Thinking I was worried about myself, thinking I needed to perform. And that was every day.
‘I woke up with a goal every day. I woke up with a challenge every day. I woke up half nervous. You wake up and get on the weighing scales and you have a routine of thinking “Do I have to lose three or four pounds to go racing? I am not going to get to eat much today”.
‘Hopefully, I would ride a few winners and if I did I would come home that night and think “Oh great, I’m in a good mood”. If you don’t, you think “I’m never going to have another winner again, can’t wait to wake up tomorrow, can’t wait to get through this and get another horse so I can prove to myself that I’m all right”.
‘Trying to replace that — you go into property or finance or whatever it may be — you’re not going to get something that makes you have that nervousness in the morning. I get up in the morning now and think “I might go to Jonjo’s and ride or I might go to Nicky Henderson’s or I might go racing somewhere if JP’s got a runner, but it doesn’t really matter if I go or not go”.
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not under pressure. And that’s difficult. It’s difficult not being under pressure. I’m floating. I could go into something else and I could work my butt off but is it going to make me happy? Am I going to get the same fulfilment from it that I got from riding? No, I’m not. I could play more golf but I’m not going to win the US Open, am I?’
McCoy is an intelligent man. He is being honest with himself about the way he feels. He is not hiding from it. And so, of course, he has thought long and hard about how to try to fix it, how to try to fix himself.
People have suggested various avenues, the most obvious of which is becoming a trainer, like so many former jockeys.
‘How do I fix it?’ he said. ‘I don’t know if I’m getting closer. How do I know? How do I put myself under pressure? I don’t know where I could ever get an obsession or an enjoyment from something like that, something that I was good at. All the enjoyment is from being successful at it.
‘People ask me about going to be a trainer but I don’t think you could work for me as a trainer. I don’t think you could ride for me. I think I would be a nightmare. It would do my head in. I would be thinking too much about it.
‘I’m not saying I would be Roy Keane but I even watch football now and I look at some of those lads and do they look like they’re spent when they’re walking off a football pitch? I never look at one of them and think “He’s dead, he’s empty”. Never. I’m not saying losing your temper is the right thing but if someone has beaten you, it has to have an effect. It has to grate on you. It has to ruin your day.’
Roger Federer’s win at the Australian Open earlier this year made a big impression on him. He had wondered why Federer was still playing and the Swiss master’s victory over Rafael Nadal in the final at the end of an epic tournament provided him with an answer.
‘Most people can’t quit at the top because they still love it,’ said McCoy. ‘Why would you quit? A perfect example of it is Roger Federer. For the last three years, I have been wondering why is Federer still playing.
‘He is the best tennis player ever. He is brilliant to watch. You would never lose respect for Federer but people might think he ended up getting beat the last three or four years he was playing. Then he won the Australian Open and you think he was right not to give up.
‘Do I think I could still do it? I’m probably like every other sportsperson. I watch racing every day and I’m thinking “Those lads are no better than I am”. But it’s all right thinking it. You have to go out and do it. And to do it, you have to believe it. There’s dreaming and there’s dreaming.
‘There are a lot of moments when I think I retired too early. But I’m too stubborn to go back. I’d rather suffer and think I had a good time.
‘Too stubborn to admit I might have made a mistake. It kills me that I retired but in a way I know it was the right thing.
‘I won 20 jockeys’ championships. When you get into your 40s as a sportsperson, you have done your time. No matter how much you see other people competing and think you could do that, you have to be brave enough to think “I had my time”.
There are still fears, though. And again McCoy, 42, is not afraid to admit to them. Being the best drove him. Just because he retired, it doesn’t mean he wants anyone else to take that mantle. Not his friend, Richard Johnson, who is about to be crowned the Stobart British champion jockey for the second year in succession. Not anyone.
‘Someone asked me about teaching more young lads how to ride,’ said McCoy. ‘I thought “What happens if they rode more winners than me?” I’m thinking “No, I’ll give that a miss”. There are a few lads I’ve helped but I’d be frightened they’d be the one.
‘The only saving grace I have is that Richard Johnson is going to be Champion Jockey this year and he is not going to win 20 jockeys’ championships so I have got the best part of 20 years before anyone could match that. Richard would have to ride to the age of 45 or 46 to catch my winners.
‘Age is the enemy of every sportsperson. No matter how good you are and how much you win, you can’t stop getting old.’
McCoy is still fighting the scales. He admitted to eating an entire packet of chocolate biscuits a few months ago. He was 10st 3lbs when he rode his last race that afternoon at Sandown in 2015. He weighed himself before Christmas and he had gone up to 12st 5lbs. He worried that it would stop him riding out. He started going to the gym. He is back down to 11st 9lbs now.
He has come to understand there is no magic solution to the loss of his career. He copes. He is president of the Injured Jockeys Fund and knows he’s one of the lucky ones. ‘I had more falls than anyone else and I walked away,’ he said.
‘Look, I don’t sit at home and cry and think I wish I was still a jockey. There were a couple of days when I was thinking “What have I got to get up for?”
‘That’s when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Whereas, now, I tend to find something to do even if it’s going to one of the yards and look at some of JP’s horses. Just make myself busy. I’m perfectly fine if I don’t have time to think about it.’
People ask about me being a trainer but I don’t think anyone could work for me, I’d be a nightmare
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