The cloak of celebrity does not rest easily on the shoulders of Tony McCoy. One of his first exposures to his burgeoning fame came three years ago when, after his first jockeys' title in England, the local boy made good was invited back to a prize-giving ceremony in his old school in Randalstown. Throughout the evening McCoy cut an uncomfortable figure, almost embarrassed by all the attention.

The centrepiece of the night was a mercifully short question and answer session between the jockey and his old headmaster. In the course of this, McCoy expressed genuine bemusement as to why he had been asked to come back to a school he had spent more time out of than in. The set-piece interview wound tortuously towards a conclusion. At the end, when asked what his ambitions were, McCoy answered in a half whisper: "To ride as many winners as I can."

Last Saturday afternoon, in the winter gloom of the pre-Christmas meeting at Cheltenham, McCoy was led into the winners' enclosure on Majadou, his 1,000th winner in just over five years of riding in Britain. Given that he had reached that milestone in half the time of the other four men who have achieved that feat - Stan Mellor, John Francome, Peter Scudamore and Richard Dunwoody - McCoy might have been forgiven a little celebration. After all, Flat racing has become fat on a diet of flying dismounts and over-the-top expressions of joy.

But this was the more reserved world of National Hunt, and this was the modern jockey who represents more than anyone else a value system that puts reticence and keeping your counsel above gaudy shows of emotion. So McCoy dismounted almost apologetically and sucked in his already drawn features just a little more as the boys of the racing press descended.

McCoy has grown more comfortable with these interrogations since that return visit to his old school, but he still exhibits all the enjoyment of someone having pins slowly forced into his eyes. At the end of a short session, where the questions were invariably longer than the answers they elicited, someone asked McCoy about his plans. The reply had an air of inevitability about it: "To keep riding plenty of winners." While things have changed from that night in Randalstown, they have also stayed the same.

With that he was off into the sanctuary of the weighing room. A television camera caught him as he walked through the door to cheers from the other jockeys preparing for the next race. What followed was perhaps the most unguarded image of McCoy the racing public has ever seen. His face broke into a wide smile and he stuck his tongue out to acknowledge the praise of his peers. It was the action of a man relaxing among friends.

But after that it was back to business and the rest of his book of horses for the afternoon. McCoy has developed his singular determination and will to win into an art form. His has a stoicism and dedication that verges on the masochistic. A tall man, his original ambition was to be a flat jockey, but he soon realised he could never make the feather-like weights. But he has no qualms now about starving himself and subjecting himself to interminable sessions in the sauna to slim down to 10 st if he feels the horse is worth it.

From the day he arrived in England as a raw apprentice, McCoy's mentor has been Richard Dunwoody. There are many similarities between the two. In his early days Dunwoody had the same drive and naked ambition as McCoy to supplant the old order and set new standards and records. But as with all National Hunt jockeys, there was always the lingering fear of either serious injury or burn-out.

Five years on Dunwoody remains a role model for his prodigy. Even before yesterday's announcement of his retirement after a season blighted by injury, there were indications Dunwoody was starting to pick and choose his rides just a little more carefully.

Tony McCoy's fall at Plumpton on Monday, when he was taken to hospital for precautionary X-rays, was a reminder of how precarious is the sport in which he plies his trade. Whether he takes his foot off the pedal just a little in the years to come remains to be seen.

For now, he can bask in the glow of a man at the top of his profession. Of the five jockeys to have reached 1,000 winners, three - Scudamore, Dunwoody and McCoy - have been attached to the racing machine that is trainer Martin Pipe. Like his charges, Pipe is not a man disposed to give too much away, but when asked to compare them last weekend he too let his guard down momentarily and seemed to suggest McCoy was potentially the best of the three. "He has this great belief in himself," said Pipe, "and imposes it time and again on his mounts."

And that is the reason why McCoy is, and looks likely to continue to be, the most successful figure in Irish and British racing for perhaps the next decade. The statistics reflect his dominance. Behind the bare total of winners, there is an even more revealing figure which computes the percentage of wins compared to the number of rides. McCoy's sits somewhere around 28 per cent, which is a full 10 per cent ahead of his nearest rivals. McCoy does not just dominate his chosen sport, he tramples mercilessly all over the opposition.

Next in his sights will be Dunwoody's all-time winners record which will now remain fixed at 1,699. Beyond that, and perhaps when he starts to run out of the goals that so obviously drive him, McCoy may become troubled by the absence of wider sporting recognition for what he has achieved. His name has not figured in the short-lists for the various sports personality of the year awards here; given McCoy's unabated excellence that is little short of a disgrace.

This may rest partly with an image problem associated with racing which seems to hamstring it from moving beyond its traditional and shrinking constituency. McCoy, Dunwoody and the rest may help to change that over time. But for now you have to wonder at a culture here in the North that elevates figures like Eddie Irvine to icon status and all but ignores the man who is the most impressive and pre-eminent sporting figure in these islands. That just does not add up.