The turf
The Real Thing
Robin Oakley
When Willie Rock asked jockeys to school his horses after racing a few years ago some used to be reluctant. The Antrim trainer had some mettlesome beasts. But he would cajole them with the refrain: `Wee Authnay at home rides that horse Without complaining, and he's only thir- teen.' The then five-stone Wee Authnay, from the eel-fishing centre of Toomebridge on the Bann, who used to ride his bicycle the 12 miles at dawn to Rock's yard in Cullybackey, is now the 22-year-old cham- pion jockey A.P. McCoy. Less than three years ago he came to England having only ridden in a single chase. Last year he was champion jockey. This season he rode the fastest-ever century of winners. And now, at the Cheltenham Festival, the Olympics of steeplechasing, Tony McCoy has emerged as a double gold medallist, having ridden the winners of both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup. So good is he that other professional voices are being raised suggesting that he should be handi- capped as well as the horses he rides.
In no other sport perhaps are pain and glory such close companions. The day after the teetotal McCoy had brought in 25 bot- tles of champagne for the other jockeys to help celebrate his triumph and partied until 3 a.m., he was riding a quartet of average horses at Folkestone, winning nothing and getting unceremoniously dumped by one of them, Newlands General. His Cheltenham triumph came only six weeks after he had broken his collar-bone and shoulder-blade in another fall at Wincanton. And indeed it was a broken leg which set him on the road to jumping glory in the first place. Having moved on from Willie Rock to Jim Bolger, McCoy had had just six winners on the flat from 60 rides when he broke a leg badly on the gallops. As he mended, he suddenly began to grow and from then on the racing career of which he dreamed had to be over Jumps.
He has been lucky in his mentors. His riding career this side of the water began, like Adrian Maguire's, as conditional jock- ey to super-tutor Toby Balding. But what We see with the 5ft 11 McCoy is an unremitting drive for success allied to a natural racing brain. And Cheltenham could scarcely have been a better showcase for his talents. In Make A Stand's Champi- on Hurdle he had the confidence to let Martin Pipe's equine athlete do it his way, judging the pace superbly as they led throughout the race and defied the others to get on to them. On Mr Mulligan, a horse who, says McCoy 'can't go too short or too big' at his fences, he had to ensure that he presented him correctly at every obstacle, even when matching strides with the bold front-running Dublin Flyer before he blew up. Only at the fourth from home did they get one wrong. As Peter Scudamore is gen- erous enough to admit, we are in a new era of race-riding over jumps and McCoy is the Real Thing.
He is not, though, out on his own. Richard Dunwoody these days does not chase the quantity required to contest the jockeys' championship, but for my money his handling of One Man in the Gold Cup was the best ride we saw all week. Urged by trainer Gordon Richards to put the spectac- ular grey to sleep in the hope of conserving his suspect stamina, Dunwoody did just that, lobbing along for the first circuit. He then picked off the others gently, one by one, until the crowd suddenly realised three out that the spectacular grey was being pro- duced to challenge for the race at just exactly the right moment. He jumped two out with every chance, only for his rider to find out conclusively that all the nursemaid- ing had been in vain. Once again, One Man's tank emptied in 50 yards. Once again between the last two fences he was running through treacle and only memory kept him going to the line. He is a fine horse and he will win more big races. But three miles, and not a yard more, is his limit.
There were other riding highlights too: Jamie Osborne's use of the breather to produce Karshi at just the moment to regain the lead he had surrendered and win the stayers' hurdle, Graham Bradley's patient waiting race on old Uncle Ernie and Rod Farrant's handling of the fast, flat jumping Martha's Son to give Tim Forester a popular success in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Farrant had won eight of his first ten races on Martha's Son and was then jocked off after losing one he should have won to Travado two years ago so he must have entered the winner's enclosure with particular relish.
We must salute the all-conquering stables of Martin Pipe and David Nicholson for their high strike rate with horses perfectly tuned for the meeting which matters. We must applaud Tim Forster for producing Martha's Son to win after the horse had jumped just one fence in public over the past 16 months and Noel Chance for having Mr Mulligan fit enough to win the Gold Cup after 77 days without a race. Salute too horse-physio Mary Bromiley for mending Mr Mulligan's injuries after his Boxing Day fall and her physio daughter Rabbit Slattery for getting Tony McCoy fit to ride after his broken shoulder. But the final accolade for true Cheltenham spirit must go to the Irish punter who won enough to pay off his mort- gage on Istabraq, then lost the whole house punting Danoli for the Gold Cup. 'To be sure, it was only a small house, anyway,' he is alleged to have declared.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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