To anyone with even a passing interest in horse racing, Tony McCoy, or Sir Anthony Peter McCoy, to give him his full title, surely requires little or no introduction. McCoy retired on April 25, 2015, having ridden 4,348 National Hunt winners in Britain and Ireland, making him far and away the most prolific jump jockey in history. Indeed, his nearest rival in the all-time list, Richard Johnson, rode 3,819 winners, but did not retire until April 3, 2021.
Born in Moneyglass, County Antrim, Northern Ireland on May 4, 74, McCoy rode his first winner on British soil, Chickabiddy, trained by Gordon Edwards, in a handicap hurdle at Exeter on November 1, 1994. He became champion conditional jockey in 1994/95 with a record 74 winners and champion jockey in his first season as a fully-fledged professional, 1995/96, with 175 winners. McCoy would, in fact, defend his title every year until his retirement, an unbroken stretch of 20 years. Indeed, in 2001/02, en route to his seventh championship, he rode 289 winners, breaking the long-standing record for winners in a single season, under either code, 269, set by Sir Gordon Richards in 1947.
In 1997, McCoy was recruited as stable jockey to eventual 15-time champion trainer Martin Pipe at Pond House Stables in Nicholashayne, Devon as a replacement for the previous incumbent, David Bridgwater who, to the suprise of many, walked away from the job at the start of the 1996/97 season. Over the next seven years, Pipe and McCoy formed a formidable partnership that yielded 1,154 winners and made them perennial champions until 2004, when McCoy was offered a lucrative retainer by John ‘J.P.’ McManus.
At the Cheltenham Festival, McCoy rode a total of 31 winners, winning the Champion Hurdle and the Ryanair Chase three times apiece, the Cheltenham Gold Cup twice and the Queen Mother Champion Chase once. He also famously won the Grand National on Don’t Push It, trained by Jonjo O’Neill, in 2010.