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Does anyone still get excited when they find AP is aboard their horse at the big meetings? I don’t do stats but I suspect his strike rate is in rapid decline. Albertas Run, Binocular and Jered – how many other jockeys could have won on those? It is easy to point to the association with JP limiting his opportunities but clearly not all JP’s are duds and he surely is first in the queue for many of the best outside rides. It must rankle that the likes of Walsh and Thornton are increasingly taking the limelight on the big occasion and I think we all know he is still champion jockey only because Walsh spends so much time in Ireland.
I think he tries too hard at big meetings which is understandable given the lack of success he’s had recently compared to those you mention- Perce Rock was an excellent example. "Agressive rides" work better on reluctant low-grade beasts than on good horses in top races.
McCoy has never really been one for the "classy" horse anyway has he?
When you look at his career and number of winners for a man with that statistical record his number of "top class" wins is extremely low.
McCoy is an amazing jockey no question. Run of the mill, every day horses that need shoving and dedication from the jockey and McCoys your man. He’s won his Champion jockey titles by starting riding early, going anywhere, riding anything and having (largely) a stable (Pipe’s) that churned out winner after winner after winner of "ordinary" horses.
When it comes to top class horses in top class races though its a different ball game and I prefer a different type of jockey, one with more guile, more class if you like with a tactical brain, coolness and an ability to let the horse determine and to merely assist and make decisions at the right time.
Ruby Walsh for example is a magnificent jockey on top class horses, so too is Sam Thomas (though he is relatively new at it), Choc Thornton.
McCoy is a hard, tough workman of a jockey and they are the horses generally that he tends to suit, whereas the classier jockeys tend to suit the classier horses.
McCoy reminds me to a degree of Seb Sanders on the flat. Sanders isn’t someone I’d want on my side in a Group 1. I’d be wanting Ryan Moore, Johhny Murtagh, Mick Kinane someone like that.
The great jockeys are people like Fallon who are equally adept with any horse of any type. Class horses, average horses they made no difference to Fallon, hold up horses, prominant horses he could ride them all and he’d do it better than anyone.
Just my take on it, but I’m of the opinion that different jockeys suit different horses and different types of races. If you have a big field everyday flat race and you have a hold up horse Spencer is your man. Yep he’ll make errors but 9 times out of 10 he’ll succeed. His ride on Zidane at Newmarket recently was typical of the man, fantastic ride. If you have a 16 runner novice hurdle round Plumpton I’d want McCoy on my side.
Some jockeys are better on better horses than ordinary horses Kinane and Sam Thomas spring to mind.
Legends like Piggott / Fallon – put them on a rocking horse and they’d still have a chance ……. well almost.
McCoy has ‘suffered’ because – if offered a choice between Denman and a rocking-horse for the same money – Frank Berry would probably plump for the latter.
McCoy simply doesn’t have the ammunition in the very best races; and he rarely had it when he was at Pipe’s too.
Totally agree. In his early days with Pipe, the yard had a lot of top class horses but the last couple of years there they lost a lot of good owners and David Johnson went trhough a lean spell. Since going to Jonjo’s the yard has had several problems and he’s been over loyal towards them when given the choice between one of JP’s elsewhere or one he knows inside out. This season he also found himself riding one or two at Cheltenham that he hadn’t ridden before which meant learning about them during the race, which can’t be easy when the stakes are so high. But given the horse, he’s still as good as any. Plus he was unlucky on one or two, how close was Refinement? And with a bit more knowledge he may well have won on Binocular and Franchoek so could have had 4 winners which isn’t a bad total.
There never have been any prizes for what might have been – all jockeys could point to hard luck stories. Fact is he now regularly struggles to ride more than one winner at the Cheltenham Festival. Without doubt keeping it simple and attacking from the front played to his strengths – Make A Stand, Mr Mulligan and Brave Inca are prime examples. I am not suggesting for one moment that connections start replacing him with Joe Tizzard but riding so many from behind he no longer stands out as a multiple champion jockey. Personally I don’t think he has ever been quite the same jockey since his first bad injury.
I would have agreed at the beginning of the season but Mcmanus has got some very good animals to go to war with next year.
I never thought there was any value with McCoy’s rides, certainly in the Martin Pipe years,so tended to avoid him anyway, but my opinion of him as a jockey changed after his ride on Straw Bear, which was awesome.
People laughed at me years ago when I stated that McCoy is at his best scrubbing home 1/4 shots at Newton Abbot. But I still stand by that opinion. He can throw the kitchen sink at a horse to get it home (ref. Deanos Beano), and he is a devout horseman no doubt, but there are many devout horsemen who would do just as well if they got the breaks that McCoy has had over the years.
McCoy is a good jockey, no more no less.
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