LONG before the curtain came down on the National Hunt campaign with Saturday night's meeting at Market Rasen, it was clear that Martin Pipe and Tony McCoy would again be champion trainer and jockey respectively.
Indeed, the two record-breakers were even more dominant this season than last. Pipe topped the trainers' table with a record £1,360,000 in prize money, over £300,000 clear of runner-up David Nicholson.
He also sent out more than 200 winners for the fifth time but the first since 1991/92 and his final tally of 212 was 112 more than anyone else.
Nor was it just a numbers game for Pipe in 1996/97. His four winners at the Cheltenham Festival, a post-war record, included the second Champion Hurdle victory of his career with Make A Stand.
As in his first championship season, McCoy kick-started his bid with a stack of winners in the summer jumping season. He smashed Peter Scudamore's record for the fastest 100 and ended up with 190 winners, 59 clear of runner-up Jamie Osborne.
McCoy landed both of jump racing's championship events as he added the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Mr Mulligan to Make A Stand's Champion Hurdle.
He was denied the chance to become the first since 1930 to take the Grand National as well due to concussion.
His predecessor as champion, Richard Dunwoody, broke another of Scudamore's records as he completed 100 winners in a season for the eighth straight year. But Adrian Maguire had less luck, as he was forced to miss the Cheltenham Festival for the third year running.
No sooner had he shown he was the jockey in form with a five-timer at Kempton on Racing Post Chase day than Maguire was ruled out for the rest of the season as he broke his arm in a fall at Leicester.
Victory in Grand National at Aintree went to Lord Gyllene, owned by Stan Clarke, trained by Steve Brookshaw and ridden by Tony Dobbin.
The race was cancelled on the Saturday because of a bomb scare but it was run 48 hours later in front of a television audience, incredibly, bigger than in 1996! McCoy, Pipe and all the rest start again on zero when action resumes with first meeting of the summer jumping campaign at Perth on Thursday.
