ONE OF HORSE racing’s greats bowed out of the game in April after 4,358 winners, 20 successive champion jumps jockey titles, two Cheltenham Gold Cups and one Grand National win.
AP McCoy, known by friends and family as Champ, made a huge impression on racing fans throughout his 23-year career. From his first win aboard Legal Steps at Thurles in 1992 until his final victory on Gannicus in Doncaster in April, his obsession with winning never wavered.
In his 2011 self-titled autobiography, McCoy was frank about his difficult personality. He admitted to being selfish, a bully and a control freak. His unquenchable desire to be champion jockey, his constant battle with making weight and injury troubles saw him spark at the drop of the hat.
Wife Chanelle bore the brunt of his outbursts. Her husband’s addiction to winning put their relationship in danger on numerous occasions.
Far from a tragic hero though, the Arsenal fanatic got out while still on top and his marriage intact. He will be remembered as a tenacious and dogged jockey who refused to give in, even when his body encouraged him to.
During his career the 41-year-old had more hospital visits than most jockeys have group one winners – he broke both collarbones, two vertebrae, ribs, shoulder blades, cheekbones, a leg, arm and wrist.
McCoy was awarded BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2010, the year he won his Grand National, on Don’t Push It, at his 15th attempt. It was a moment he admitted “meant everything to me”.
March’s Cheltenham festival will feel different without McCoy on the card. However, there is no immediate danger of withdrawal symptoms – after he signed a deal with Channel 4 that will see him work as a pundit for the jumps season. And if that doesn’t fill the gap, the recently released feature film ‘Being AP’, that follows him during his final season, certainly will.
Spare a thought for Richard Johnson, the 38-year-old who was a 15-time runner-up to McCoy in the jumps jockey championship. It is no coincidence that this year he had his best start to a jumps season and he has already admitted, with McCoy out of the way, “the title is now his to lose”.