Cheltenham Festival Top Jockeys: Tony McCoy

Although it is some years since Tony McCoy won the Cheltenham Festival Top Jockey, he is in the top three favourites to achieve that prestigious result this year.

It was over a decade ago since Tony McCoy rode five Festival winners to become the Top Jockey. He had also achieved that position the previous year when he rode three horses to victory.

As in the case of the Barry Geraghty and Ruby Walsh, other two favourites to become Top Jockey, Tony McCoy was born in Ireland, in fact in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, though he moved to England in 1994 when he was nineteen. His first winner came when he was only seventeen years old.

Tony McCoy is widely revered as the best jump jockey riding today. He has won over 3,000 races and his 3,000th win was last year at Plumpton. He has been the Champion Jump Jockey on thirteen occasions. His peak season was in 2002 when he won 289 races.

There are very few important races that he has not yet won, but one of these that has continued to taunt him is the Grand national. On two occasions he finished in third place

Unusually for a successful jockey, Tony McCoy breaks the jockey stereotype. Whist most jockeys are small in stature and light in frame, Tony McCoy is over six feet tall and has a heavy frame. He weighs over seventeen stone, which is astonishing for a jockey.

A little disturbingly, Tony McCoy has come under a certain amount of criticism about the manner in which he became detached from Denman his mount in the Aon Chase at Newbury. He will ride Denman in the Cheltenham Gold Cup for Paul Nicholls on the final day of the festival, and the Aon Chase provided an opportunity for horse and rider to become acquainted with each other.

Does Tony McCoy stand a realistic chance to become the Cheltenham Festival Top Jockey? Certainly the competition will be tough and his falling out with the potential Gold Cup winner Denman won’t have helped his chances, but it is impossible to dismiss this possibly once all time greatest rider.

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