We will be in full flat season mode from here until October but will spend some time this week reflecting on the 2011-12 National Hunt Season. Tony McCoy won another UK jockey’s title and now has 4000 winners in his sights. We will be tracking his progress towards that total. Richard Johnson finished second yet again but had to battle for that spot with Jason Maguire. With an injury free season Jason may be the man to gave Tony most to think about in 2012-13. Ominously for all pretenders to his crown McCoy signed off his weekly Telegraph column for the summer saying :
It all starts again on Sunday and we are all back to zero. It would be nice if, by the time we start this column again in November, I had already ridden 100 winners.
Judged as it is on the quantity of winners the Irish based pair of Barry Geraghty and Ruby Walsh are unlikely to be challengers for the title. Were it judged on the same basis as the trainers title – that is on prize money won – there would have been a different outcome. The top ten National Hunt jockeys ranked by prize money won in 2011-12 are tabled below :
| JOCKEY | WINS | RUNS | WIN % | 2NDS | WINS/ 2NDS% | TOTAL PRIZE | £1 STAKE | G1s |
| Barry Geraghty | 63 | 220 | 28.6% | 37 | 170% | £1,735,426 | -15.17 | 10 |
| R Walsh | 55 | 221 | 24.9% | 30 | 183% | £1,497,668 | -45.89 | 6 |
| A P McCoy | 199 | 727 | 27.4% | 128 | 155% | £1,473,738 | -62.83 | 2 |
| Daryl Jacob | 83 | 455 | 18.2% | 77 | 108% | £1,391,366 | -70.19 | 0 |
| Richard Johnson | 153 | 834 | 18.3% | 152 | 101% | £1,296,402 | -104.85 | 2 |
| Jason Maguire | 144 | 625 | 23.0% | 115 | 125% | £1,095,248 | -6.46 | 2 |
| Noel Fehily | 49 | 352 | 13.9% | 56 | 88% | £713,324 | -116.51 | 2 |
| Tom Scudamore | 65 | 450 | 14.4% | 53 | 123% | £701,472 | -129.29 | 1 |
| Robert Thornton | 51 | 353 | 14.4% | 49 | 104% | £683,903 | -127.01 | 2 |
| Sam Twiston-Davies | 81 | 598 | 13.5% | 91 | 89% | £629,580 | -150.63 | 0 |
Barry Geraghty was the top prize money winner, landing ten Grade 1s in the process. He was also top jockey at Cheltenham and Aintree in what probably ranks as his best ever season.
Ruby Walsh was second on a prize money basis in the UK and landed another six UK grade 1s during the season. He also reached notable career milestones notching up his 100th Grade 1 ( Big Bucks,Long Walk Hurdle) and 2000th career win ( Quevega, Mares Hurdle, Cheltenham).
