Tony McCoy made it to the winner’s enclosure after the last two rides of his career but, alas, only as far as the spot marked “3rd”. The 40-year-old who has become a byword for gritty endurance shed tears before and after his final race, but was surely sent into retirement with a renewed sense of the impact he has had on his audience, for this occasion felt much more like a protracted celebration of one man’s career than a day at the races.
“It has been one of the hardest days in my life,” he said and few interviews have been more difficult than the one he gave on Channel 4 immediately after dismounting from Box Office, his final conveyance, when something in his throat seemed to be preventing him from getting the words out.
There was plenty of humour later to lighten the tone. The first words McCoy uttered as he sat down to face the media was: “I’ll have to start work now.” Jonjo O’Neill, the trainer of Box Office, said: “After that effort, he’ll never ride for me again.”
JP McManus, the owner of Box Office and the man to whom McCoy has been so devoted for the past decade, confidently predicted that the horse would never again receive an ovation like the one when the rider walked him back in front of the packed grandstands to say goodbye.
Even when McCoy’s mood began to darken, the next wry smile was never long coming. “I’ve got nothing to look forward to, really, now,” he said at one point, his head dropping until it snapped up again as he recalled a significant acknowledgement he had to make. “Well, obviously my wife and kids,” he said, to laughter, as well as a scowl from seven-year-old Eve, watching from a few feet away. “I just got that in in time. I would have been more worried about the daughter than the mother, to be honest.”
At length, a very long list of people were thanked but McCoy also made a point of thanking the entire sport. “I really feel like I have lived the dream. I couldn’t have wished to do anything more with my life.
“I love sport, I love all other sports. If you ask me, could I have played football, golf, whatever, I wouldn’t rather do anything than be a jump jockey. In terms of adrenaline rush, the thrill of it, the people you meet, the colleagues you have, just the whole sport in general, I have been so blessed. If I could, I’d go back and do it all again.”
That is not possible and it appears the next thing to a certainty is that McCoy’s pride will never allow him to go back on his word and make a comeback. So what is next? “I’ll have a nice breakfast,” was the only prediction he offered about his first day as an ex-jockey.
Beyond that, the details are a little hazy. McCoy is confidently predicted by many to be a pundit in waiting when Channel 4’s coverage of jumping resumes in the autumn and there is little doubt that he could offer a vast store of insights. But he was hesitant when that possibility was put to him, saying quietly: “I don’t know if that’s for me.”
The question of what is for him can wait until after a family holiday in Barbados, following which he will sit down with his agent and discuss numerous offers. Before that, there will be a trip to Ireland for the Punchestown Festival this coming week, punctuated by sobering visits to see the very badly injured jockeys Robbie and JT McNamara.
“I’ve got very little to be complaining about,” McCoy said as he discussed that last part of his plans. “It will be nice to see the two lads and that’ll put a lot of things in perspective, very quick.”
One could overstate the extent to which retirement will be painful to McCoy. Giving up the work he loved will leave an undeniable void and there will be no way to replace the thrills he has enjoyed at regular intervals over decades. But this has been his own decision, formed by degrees over five years and no one will be more keenly aware than he of how lucky a jump jockey has to be to leave the game on his own terms after more than 17,000 rides.
One imagines that McCoy will tacitly suffer his share of enduring pain but, for the first time since he was a teenager, his bones will now be given time to shuffle themselves back into some kind of order. He has two young children that he dotes on and the time he can now spend with them is just one of the benefits of being able to give up the day job.
He leaves with a total of 4,348 wins in jump racing, about three times what the record for a jump jockey was when he started his career more than 23 years ago. Even so, he confidently predicted that a new mark would be set some day. “I hope I’m dead,” he said cheerily, “but all records get broken.”
It is not really true to say that there has been no one like him. To a large extent, McCoy is like every other jump jockey and proud to be so. The qualities he values in himself – toughness, resilience and durability – are the qualities racing’s winter branch has always rewarded and its followers have always cherished.
McCoy is a product of his sport and, while he has been wildly more effective than any of his predecessors or contemporaries, he differs from them only in quality, not in kind. It is one of the reasons that the praise heaped on him by his weighing room colleagues has had a real warmth and sincerity.
Richard Johnson has continually finished runner-up in the title race to McCoy and said: “It’s a sad day. Twenty years of good memories and we will still be friends for a long time.”
The last and possibly warmest tribute came from McManus. “The wins are one thing but there’s a friendship that’s developed and it grew over time, which is a great thing. Most relationships, they start going the other way. This relationship just got stronger and stronger.
“My family love him, I love him, all the lads down on the farm, if they hear AP is coming for the day, there’s a spring in their step. We’re just so lucky to have him in our lives.”
