My Autobiography by McCoy A. P

Author:McCoy, A. P. [McCoy, A. P.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781409131687
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-10-19T23:00:00+00:00

It’s All About the Stats

The thing about breaking a record and setting a statistic is that in years to come, there can be no argument about it, it’s there in the record books. You hear arguments all the time over who is the best rider, Richard Dunwoody or John Francome or Peter Scudamore or Ruby Walsh or Jonjo O’Neill or Charlie Swan. Everybody will have their own opinions, nobody will be wrong. But ask somebody for the statistic of who rode the most winners ever, who won the most winners in a season, and it’s there in black and white. Irrefutable.

Statistics are everything to me. I’m sure there have been, and will be, many jockeys who are better than me, but in years to come, when I finish riding and people can’t remember who AP McCoy or John Francome or Richard Dunwoody were, if they look up the record books, they will see my name there. If they check up to see who rode more winners, Peter Scudamore or AP McCoy, it will say AP McCoy. That’s more important than looking good or than winning any big race.

Thank God I was lucky enough to win the Grand National, because if I hadn’t managed to win it before I retired, it would have been a glaring omission from my CV, that’s for sure. However, as I have said before, lots of jockeys win the Grand National, whereas not many jockeys have been champion. Since 1980, 28 different riders have won the Grand National. In the same period of time, only four have been champion jockey.

That was why Sir Gordon’s record meant so much to me. It was a big deal to break Peter Scudamore’s record of most winners in a season by a National Hunt jockey, but beating Sir Gordon’s record – most winners in a season by a flat or National Hunt jockey – was much bigger. And I beat it. That’s a fact.

I accept that it was probably much tougher for Sir Gordon back in the 1940s: he had to travel to races by train, there was none of this flitting by helicopter between racecourses, and riding at more than one meeting in a day. As against that, though, he probably got to ride whatever he wanted in pretty much any race.

Beating his record was the most important thing in my life at the time. I never discussed it with anyone. I didn’t sit down with Dave Roberts at the start of the season and say, right Dave, I want to beat Sir Gordon’s record, here’s what we’re going to do. I didn’t tell Martin to ready as many horses as he could for the easy races during the summer, that I was going to go all out to beat Sir Gordon. It was just something that lived with me, an idea that existed in my head and nowhere else. It didn’t make for a very peaceful existence. It led to me regarding 245 winners in the 1999/2000 season as a disappointment.

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