IT’S MY TURN TO SHINE NOW, SAYS JOHNSON

THE words are spoken light-heartedly but the intent behind them is real. ‘The perfect result is for me to beat AP by a short head. I know that would upset most of the nation but it would make me smile,’ said Richard Johnson (above right) as he looks forward to today’s Crabbie’s Grand National and a potential outcome of delicious irony — but one which is very possible. The jockey who has spent his career chasing the tail of the retiring 19-time champion AP McCoy rides last year’s runner-up Balthazar King in the £1million steeplechase. Kept fresh for the race having bypassed a chance to repeat his 2014 win in the Cross Country Chase at last month’s Cheltenham Festival, the Philip Hobbs-trained 11-year-old looks to be one of the biggest threats to McCoy-ridden favourite Shutthefrontdoor and a film-script last ever ride if that gelding was to win at Aintree. Smile? Johnson could probably leap over Becher’s Brook unaided by horsepower if Balthazar King helps him shoulder his great nemesis out of the National spotlight. But not remotely in a bitter way. Johnson rarely gets the acclaim he deserves but he never complains. He is the straight man in one of sport’s greatest double acts, with McCoy delivering most of the eyecatching one-liners. Like snooker great Jimmy White, who was never world champion, and Frenchman Raymond Poulidor, three times runner-up in the Tour de France and dubbed the ‘eternal second’ while competing against cycling icons in Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil, Johnson is one of sport’s great runner-ups. But that is too glib an assessment. It cruelly devalues his achievements — 2,809 winners, the second highest ever by a jump jockey. In many ways his achievements are more laudable than McCoy’s — all the graft, little of the glory. ‘It has been frustrating to have ridden against AP for my whole career because he has won everything,’ he said. ‘It has been hard to compete with him but at the same time we get on really well. It is not his fault I am not champion, it is mine because I have not ridden more winners than him. ‘I have to focus on what I do and the horses I ride, whether I am against AP, as I have been for the last 20 years, or next season.’