JONJO O’NEILL has always had a way of whisking the rug out from under any interviewer. So when Nick Luck asked recently how the prospect of retirement had affected AP McCoy, O’Neill could not resist the deadpan answer. “Well, he’s terribly idle nowadays,” said the trainer. “He’s not much use at all.” The truth, of course, is somewhat different. McCoy has been piling on the miles and heaping up the winners as if the clock was ticking on to eternity. But the reality will hit home to the 19-times champion more brutally than ever this week at Cheltenham. If, as he says, he doesn’t think about the day of retirement, the accolades he will receive at the Festival, win or lose, will leave him in no doubt.
On the last day of the meeting, when usually there is no more emotion to be squeezed out of the place and only the desperate are still at play in the betting ring, McCoy will go to post in a race now named after him — the AP McCoy Grand Annual Chase — and a Festival career that began with a win in the same race nearly two decades ago will come a full and neat circle. No one will head for the car parks early and no one will be left in the weighing-room.
At a recent pre-Festival press conference, McCoy was relaxed and funny, but he is in a dreamland at the minute, unable to contemplate the moment when his faithful old kitbag, his riding boots and his back protector, his whips and his helmet are finally thrust into the understairs cupboard for good.
“It’s not something I think about,” he told Luke Harvey. “I don’t think I’m retiring. I just want to go out and beat the fellow alongside me. But I do worry about it. I’ve not known any other way of life and it’s going to be a big shock to the system.
“I’ll just deal with it the best I can. I’ll still ride out, maybe sit on a few horses for the boss (J.P.McManus), ones he wants to buy. I might go and school a few of JP’s horses, keep the thrill a bit. I might play a bit of golf, go to the Masters, do things I’ve not been able to do before. So there are positive things about retirement. My wife is pleased about it.”
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In the meantime, there are races to be won this week to add to his tally of 30 Festival winners. Look at the list of them and the remarkable fact is that — not counting the foot-and-mouth year of 2001 — McCoy has ridden a winner at the Festival in every year since 1996, bar 2005. The height of it came early, in 1998, when he had five winners, including three in one afternoon, but with two Gold Cups, on Mr Mulligan and Synchronised, three Champion Hurdles — Make A Stand, Brave Inca and Binocular — plus a Champion Chase on Edredon Bleu.
Should he conjure up a win this week in the Triumph Hurdle and the World Hurdle, he could retire with pretty well the full collection of major honours at the Festival. No one would bet against it. So how will the champion tackle a week in which everyone will be invading his privacy? “I’m pretty good at blanking it out,” he says. “The best moment is when I’m on the horse. I’ll keep myself to myself as much as possible.”
McCoy has spent his riding life in conversation with his body and in mortal combat with pain. He has not just redrawn the statistical boundaries, his refusal ever to be laid low by being hurled repeatedly into the turf has defied medical science. But this week will be an emotional test for the champion and the pain will be dull and hard to locate.
Cheltenham is the pinnacle of the season for owners, trainers and jockeys, the haunted face of McCoy the loser has been full proof of that down the years, but this time McCoy will not just be riding for himself, he will be riding for every spectator, every punter and every racing fan in the land.