Tears of joy for McCoy

RACING AINTREE GRAND NATIONAL REPORT:TONY McCOY knew about jump racing's fickle nature long before winning Saturday's Aintree Grand National but rarely has the sport's unpredictability been more starkly illustrated than in Don't Push It's remarkable success in the world's most famous steeplechase.

The most successful jockey in the history of the game had famously failed to win in 14 previous attempts at the National and for those supposedly “in-the-know” Don’t Push It didn’t seem to be the sort to change that depressing statistic.

Unlike the iron-willed, four-legged stoics that normally manage to conquer Aintree’s gruelling challenge, Don’t Push It was labelled “mentally unstable” by McCoy amid the sort of post-race analysis on the horse’s peculiarly solitary nature that makes it just as well the hero of the hour isn’t able to read his own reviews.

The previews hadn’t been great either. Indeed pre-National speculation as to which of JP McManus’s four contenders McCoy would ride generated such little enthusiasm on the jockey’s part Don’t Push It’s eventual selection appeared to be of a half-hearted variety that suggested it didn’t really matter which one he rode.

Burrowed deep at the back of the most focused mind in racing too would have been an unspoken but nagging awareness that previous doubts about his ability to master the National had recently extended to other races.

His selection to ride Denman in the Gold Cup, for instance, provoked criticism of McCoy’s ability over fences that would have been previously unthinkable.

A third Champion Hurdle victory on Binocular last month also wouldn’t have silenced those doubters, both publicly and privately, who believe McCoy’s ability to churn out quantities of winners doesn’t stack up against his great friend and rival Ruby Walsh’s more subtle touch on the days that really matter.

And yet on Saturday, Walsh, the man with the best National record of any current rider, didn’t even make it to the start, fracturing his left arm in two places in a fall from Celestial Halo in the earlier Aintree Hurdle.

While he was being fixed up at nearby Fazakerley Hospital, and getting his mind around the fact he will miss the upcoming Punchestown Festival, it was McCoy who finally filled the one glaring blank on his career CV in the toughest chase of them all.

That it should come on Don’t Push It baffled the “in-the-know” crowd a helluva lot more than Joe Public, who bookmakers later explained provided an exhibition of such blind faith in McCoy’s abilities that the horse started a 10 to 1 joint-favourite with Big Fella Thanks.

Walsh’s injury meant a shuffle of riders that eventually left Barry Geraghty on Big Fella Thanks and as Conna Castle set a wildly spectacular pace until Becher’s second time, it looked like fortune was smiling on the 2003-winning jockey.

In fact of the three horses that tailed Black Apalachi from Becher’s, it was Don’t Push It’s stamina that was least proven and a disposition so nervous he had sweated up badly at the start meant the Jonjo O’Neill-trained horse looked set to flatter to deceive once again.

Instead it was the “bridle horse” that powered past Black Apalachi at the last. His reputation meant Denis O’Regan threw everything at the runner-up in a vain hope that Don’t Push It might fold but on a day when everything finally fell right for McCoy at Aintree there was five lengths between them at the line.

A first National for both McManus and O’Neill not surprisingly lost out in the post-race focus towards McCoy’s lancing of the Aintree boil, although the man who will be 36 next month was keen to deflect the attention their way.

“My trainer put me on the right one. I couldn’t have picked it. He was very adamant,” McCoy said.

“And it’s great for JP who puts so much into the game.”

Yesterday, on his way to Southwell for three rides, the jockey was still coming to terms with a victory that had him close to tears.

“It’s surreal. The emotion is something I’ve never felt before as a jockey. Whether it was relief or something else, I can’t explain it,” he said.

“I’ve been lucky enough to be champion jockey for the last 14 years and I’ve always felt that if I worked hard I had control over that. Whereas the Grand National, it’s once a year, you have to be on the right horse, there are 40 runners and you need luck, so I’ve never felt any control.”

McCoy added: “I didn’t do anything different this year, except maybe telling myself to enjoy it more. I’m one of those people that don’t enjoy anything unless you win. But something definitely happened on Saturday. I had a strange feeling early on that the horse was enjoying it and could win.”

As tributes flowed towards the legendary figure from Co Antrim, perhaps the most significant were the heartfelt ones from his colleagues, including the runner-up Denis O’Regan who said: “AP has been years in the game and if I was going to be beaten, I’m glad it was by him.”

Despite having now won everything the sport has to offer, McCoy is going to do nothing so predictable as ride off into the retirement sunset. “Unfortunately I’m also one of those people that very much looks to the future,” he said. “I’d love to have a go at winning the National again next year.”

And fickle as racing might be, once McCoy sets his mind to something, it’s hard to deflect him – even if it does take a while.