subject: Ap Mccoy - Can He Win The 2010 Grand National? [print this page] Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, AP McCoy is undisputedly the best jump jockey of all time. On 27th of August 2002, when victory on Mighty Montefalco in a three mile hurdle at Uttoxeter gave him his 1,700th winner, passing the three year old record total of Richard Dunwoody, his name went into the record books.
This achievement, at the age of 28, means that A.P. McCoy has set a standard that is unlikely to ever be surpassed. He was 18 years old when he started on the path to victory when he rode 'Legal Steps', at Thurles in March 1992, and this initial success in Ireland led to him racing in England.
Almost immediately he made a huge impact on the British horse racing scene winning his first race in Exeter in 1994. Since then he has gone on to bigger and better things, over coming every hurdle in his bid to be the greatest.
Records were made to be broken and there is none better than AP McCoy for proving this theory. He currently holds the record for a staggering 74 winners in the 2004 season. The following year he was a champion jockey, which he incredibly managed to replicate in the following 12 seasons. During this time he also became the fastest ever jockey to reach the 1000 winner mark.
His career took him in a new direction in 2004 when he made the momentous decision to transfer to Jackdaws Castle, the state-of-the-art yard of trainer Jonjo O Neill and his landlord J.P. McManus which has made McCoy synonymous with the gold and green hoops of the racing world.
His list of wins is vast and includes the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and King George VI Chase McCoy leaving him with very little else to achieve in his staggering career.
Two goals remain for AP. The first is to ride 300 winners in a single season and the second, and maybe the greatest, is to finally win the Grand National.
So far it has eluded him, but AP is nothing if not determined and it is not something that he will give up on, having once famously said: 'I suppose some people may regard me as a failure unless I win a National - I might even do so myself'. The best response to this came from fellow jockey Carl Llewllyn, a twice National winner who added 'And then he'll consider himself a failure if he doesn't win two Nationals'.
A.P. McCoy is indeed a hard self-taskmaster, so a huge amount of thought goes into the choosing of his Grand National horse. He rode Butler's Cabin in 2008, L'Ami in 2007, Clan Royal in both 2006 and 2005, Jurancon Ii in 2004 and Irish Bleu in 2003 all without succcess.
Speculation is rife as to which horse he will choose for the 2010 Grand National, it's clearly going to be a JP McManus horse from Jonjo O'Neill but which one?? One thing is for sure, if you don't know where to put your money, you could do far worse than backing AP McCoy because one day he will win the National and there's no reason it can't be in 2010!
