Bar the Bull
At the Start
This is a very interesting article, from Greg Wood of the Guardian.
Mick Kinane was one of the most polished and professional jockeys Flat racing has seen during his 34 years in the saddle and his retirement last week was impeccably judged too. It is so difficult to judge the right moment to call it quits, but Kinane left us with the lasting memory of Sea The Stars winning the Arc. He concluded with an exclamation mark, when so many riders leave their final sentence hanging.
It is harder still for jump jockeys to get the timing right, since every ride they take could be the one that does the retiring for them. Mick Fitzgerald and, most obviously, Richard Dunwoody are two recent examples of outstanding riders whose careers ended with a shake of their doctor's head, something that, even now, Dunwoody seems to struggle to accept. His latest book was subtitled 10 Years Out Of The Saddle, which suggests that the day he was told to stop riding is still the one that defines his life.
If ever there has been a rider who deserves to go out at the top and of his own accord, it is Tony McCoy, which is why one of the more disturbing sights at Cheltenham on Saturday came as the horses returned to unsaddle after the first. At that very moment, McCoy was on the racecourse TV, riding a bumper winner on the Polytrack at Lingfield. It felt very wrong.
McCoy rode a treble at Lingfield, including the winner of a Grade Two novice chase, but it is hard to see how it is good for either McCoy or the sport as a whole if the most successful jockey in National Hunt history is in Surrey when the serious action is in the west country.
This is, of course, just one weekend, but as McCoy himself conceded in a ghosted newspaper column, "unless you are riding for Paul Nicholls or Nicky Henderson, it is tough even for a champion jockey to get on the good horses." He will be 36 in May and an ideal finale, when the time comes, would be to finish the Cheltenham Festival as leading jockey and then win the Grand National. At the moment, it is difficult to see him doing either any season soon, never mind both.
To some extent, this is McCoy's choice. The huge retainer he receives from JP McManus – the exact size of which has never been revealed but is rumoured to be anything up to £1m a year – will ensure that he will be one of the few jump jockeys to retire with his finances completely secure. And when you are getting that kind of money before even sitting on a horse, you go wherever you are required.
Nor could McCoy have imagined when he signed his contract with McManus that Nicholls and his principal jockey Ruby Walsh would come to dominate the sport at the top level so thoroughly or, for that matter, so rapidly.
McManus has an extraordinary number of horses with a wide variety of trainers, but surprisingly few that are good enough to compete in the championship events.
Binocular, touched off when favourite for last year's Champion Hurdle, is an obvious exception, but it is almost embarrassing to note that, despite having 130 individual runners in Britain alone this season, McManus's biggest money-earner in 2009-10 to date is Nostringsattached. And if you had forgotten about that one, don't feel too ashamed. It is a long time, after all, since he picked up £37,000 for winning the Summer Plate at Market Rasen in July.
Nicholls, meanwhile, is one of the few top-20 trainers who does not have horses in the green and gold in his yard. His dominance is hard-earned and richly deserved. There must be at least a chance, however, that one of the consequences will be that McCoy's brilliant career will fizzle out while everyone's attention is elsewhere.
Mick Kinane was one of the most polished and professional jockeys Flat racing has seen during his 34 years in the saddle and his retirement last week was impeccably judged too. It is so difficult to judge the right moment to call it quits, but Kinane left us with the lasting memory of Sea The Stars winning the Arc. He concluded with an exclamation mark, when so many riders leave their final sentence hanging.
It is harder still for jump jockeys to get the timing right, since every ride they take could be the one that does the retiring for them. Mick Fitzgerald and, most obviously, Richard Dunwoody are two recent examples of outstanding riders whose careers ended with a shake of their doctor's head, something that, even now, Dunwoody seems to struggle to accept. His latest book was subtitled 10 Years Out Of The Saddle, which suggests that the day he was told to stop riding is still the one that defines his life.
If ever there has been a rider who deserves to go out at the top and of his own accord, it is Tony McCoy, which is why one of the more disturbing sights at Cheltenham on Saturday came as the horses returned to unsaddle after the first. At that very moment, McCoy was on the racecourse TV, riding a bumper winner on the Polytrack at Lingfield. It felt very wrong.
McCoy rode a treble at Lingfield, including the winner of a Grade Two novice chase, but it is hard to see how it is good for either McCoy or the sport as a whole if the most successful jockey in National Hunt history is in Surrey when the serious action is in the west country.
This is, of course, just one weekend, but as McCoy himself conceded in a ghosted newspaper column, "unless you are riding for Paul Nicholls or Nicky Henderson, it is tough even for a champion jockey to get on the good horses." He will be 36 in May and an ideal finale, when the time comes, would be to finish the Cheltenham Festival as leading jockey and then win the Grand National. At the moment, it is difficult to see him doing either any season soon, never mind both.
To some extent, this is McCoy's choice. The huge retainer he receives from JP McManus – the exact size of which has never been revealed but is rumoured to be anything up to £1m a year – will ensure that he will be one of the few jump jockeys to retire with his finances completely secure. And when you are getting that kind of money before even sitting on a horse, you go wherever you are required.
Nor could McCoy have imagined when he signed his contract with McManus that Nicholls and his principal jockey Ruby Walsh would come to dominate the sport at the top level so thoroughly or, for that matter, so rapidly.
McManus has an extraordinary number of horses with a wide variety of trainers, but surprisingly few that are good enough to compete in the championship events.
Binocular, touched off when favourite for last year's Champion Hurdle, is an obvious exception, but it is almost embarrassing to note that, despite having 130 individual runners in Britain alone this season, McManus's biggest money-earner in 2009-10 to date is Nostringsattached. And if you had forgotten about that one, don't feel too ashamed. It is a long time, after all, since he picked up £37,000 for winning the Summer Plate at Market Rasen in July.
Nicholls, meanwhile, is one of the few top-20 trainers who does not have horses in the green and gold in his yard. His dominance is hard-earned and richly deserved. There must be at least a chance, however, that one of the consequences will be that McCoy's brilliant career will fizzle out while everyone's attention is elsewhere.
