Tony McCoy tips thread

[Lester]

Cheltenham Festival 2013: Riding My Tent Or Yours was the easiest decision I will make that week

That is going to be a last minute job and depend on the ground, trainers, my agent or what the boss, J P McManus, tells me to do.

On the Tuesday I ride My Tent Or Yours in the Supreme Novices and I imagine Robbie Power will continue his association with Jezki. They are first and second favourite, but I have great faith in My Tent Or Yours after the way he won the Betfair Hurdle. This was not a hard choice as I think he is a really good horse.

Binocular is my Champion Hurdle ride. A couple of weeks ago I thought he was a good each-way bet, but the value has gone. He has a lot of ground to make up with Hurricane Fly from Leoparsdstown in January and to see the best of him we need the going to keep drying.

I missed winning on Alfie Sherrin last year because he had 10st and I rode Quantitativeasing, but if he runs in the JLT Specialty I’d probably ride him. Jonjo O’Neill reckons Taquin De Seuil is his best chance of a winner during the week when he tackles the Neptune, so that is good enough for me.

I will probably ride defending Champion Finian’s Rainbow in the Champion Chase if, as seems likely, he goes for it. Unless, of course, Barry Geraghty chooses him over Sprinter Sacre. You never know!

At this stage Stocktons Wing looks my likely ride in the Fred Winter while Albertas Run has won two Ryanairs and we will be trying for a third on the Thursday.

At Fishers Cross should have a cracking chance in the Albert Bartlett on Friday while it looks increasing likely that Sunnyhillboy will have his National prep in the Gold Cup, in which case I will ride him. Mr Mole has 10st 3lb at the moment in the County Hurdle and unless the weights go up I am unlikely to be riding as I do not want to be wasting hard to have to make light weights during the Festival.

The boss has two or three with good chances in most of the handicaps but none of them stands out above the other. I have no doubt it will be easier for me to pick the wrong one than the right one.

In racing circles you can see the excitement and buzz building ahead of the Festival, not that you’d really know it in the weighing room where the focus is on that day’s action not what is happening the week after next. However, schooling 10 Festival horses for Jonjo on Friday reminded me it is just round the corner and the observant among you may have noticed I am being put on fewer rides than normal at the moment.

[Yeehaa]

Johnjo has rubbed off on him ...you would want to be backing the ones that don't get a mention ...Colour squadron ...Cantlow...shutthefrontdoor...alderwood...Pendra ...Getmeoutofhere

[mayo]

Even from the start, half a mile away, we jockeys will hear the roar of the crowd, as eager for it all to begin as we are, when those tapes go up for the first race of the Cheltenham Festival.

This year my best ride and most obvious chance of a winner, My Tent Or Yours, runs in that first race and the outcome will colour my mood for the week because I have such high expectations for the horse – a future champion, I hope.

This will be my 19th Festival as a jockey and, even since my first visit for a couple of races as a conditional rider in 1995 the meeting has grown in importance and stature. It is now the central focus of the jump season, it is the jump season, and it is very much the sport’s shop window. Even in the past five seasons our sport has become more and more wrapped around this week.

You win the Hennessy Gold Cup in November, a big race in its own right, and that is all well and good, but the question you get asked is: “Will it win the Gold Cup?”

Now they ask the same questions of horses winning in September and October or the novice races at last year’s Festival. Will they be back next season? A moderate season can be transformed by a single winner at the Festival for owners, trainers, jockeys, lads and punters alike.



Each year Cheltenham’s popularity with the public, not just National Hunt regulars, seems to increase – so much so that they have limited Friday’s crowd.

There is something about the place. Whether by design or accident, it holds an atmosphere which, say, Newmarket does not.

There is now a huge sense of occasion and the British versus Irish angle gives it an added dimension. There is nothing like riding into that packed winner’s enclosure – particularly on an Irish favourite.

A lot of people arrange their year round the Festival. I have heard of funerals being delayed because of Cheltenham and Sam Waley-Cohen, who rides Long Run in Friday’s Gold Cup, is expecting his first child on the same day.

If I did not already have Sunnyhillboy to ride in the race I would be telling him his first duty was to his wife whether she was in labour or not!

For jockeys there is nowhere else quite like it. The Grand National apart, it is the one occasion of the year when it feels like everyone is watching and the spotlight is on us. Here the highs are higher and the lows deeper, everything is accentuated – including the competition. Races are not easy to win. No race is a pushover; you need a good horse, luck and for things to happen for you.

If you are a young jockey, professional or amateur, you want to ride winners here to establish yourself and prove you can perform on the big stage. While a lack of success may not break a jockey, riding a winner can certainly make one. Adrian Maguire, my predecessor at Toby Balding’s, where I started in this country, was an amateur unheard of outside Irish point-to-points when Martin Pipe put him on Omerta in the 1991 Kim Muir. They won and a year later he took the Gold Cup on Cool Ground.

If you are an older jockey, winning is expected of you and there will be pressure on Ruby Walsh and Barry Geraghty to come away with a hatful of winners. The same applies to trainers such as Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins.

As champion jockey it is a bigger story if I draw a blank here and I have no intention of letting that happen. Just one winner will do, any more would be a bonus.

Few jockeys, I would guess, have ridden at 18 consecutive Festivals, and I am at that stage in my career when I will not be around for that many more so I try to savour every moment of the Festival these days.

Contrary to what it has sometimes looked like, I do enjoy riding here but even if my week gets off to a flier with My Tent Or Yours on Tuesday, I know there will be many ups and downs between that and the Grand Annual on Friday.

I have many happy memories of Cheltenham, and a few bad. It was a big moment when I rode my first winner there on Kibreet in the 1996 Grand Annual. A year later I won the Champion Hurdle on Make A Stand and Gold Cup on Mr Mulligan just at the time I was really beginning to get going. In 1998 I rode five winners at the meeting and it was fantastic to win the Champion Chase, which is the most thrilling race to ride in, on Edredon Bleu in 2000.

I would probably include Wichita Lineman’s hard-fought victory in the 2009 JLT Specialty Chase in my top three rides of all time. I had to push from the start but he kept finding more for me.

The 2003 Festival stands out as a dramatic one because I went there with a broken collar bone. I know it was broken because Martin Pipe’s vet X-rayed it as I had no intention of going near a doctor who might stop me riding. It did not help having a crunching fall from Copeland in the Champion Hurdle.

But Liberman won the Bumper before Golden Alpha finally finished off the job tipping up in the Grand Annual. It was the second-last race so I only missed the County Hurdle and took a few days off.

Eclipsing them all, however, was Synchronised winning last year’s Gold Cup. My boss, JP McManus, has owned horses for 40 years and to give him his first Gold Cup on a horse he bred was extra special, particularly as Synchronised’s dam was the first horse I rode in the green and gold colours.

JP gets a huge thrill out of winning any race at the Festival, whether he has backed a horse or not. I do not think he bets like he used to but I know he was pretty pleased when James Fanshawe produced Reveillez to win the Pulteney in 2006 – I suspect he might have had a couple of quid on that day. But for him it is more about the horses now and he would take as much pleasure out of an olf favourite of his winning the Glenfarclass Cross-Country unbacked as he would winning the Champion Hurdle.

I have had my lows as well, most notably when Gloria Victis and Valiramix were killed in the 2000 Gold Cup and 2002 Champion Hurdle respectively.

Next week my biggest hopes are pinned on My Tent Or Yours. If I have a good week I might squeeze out another winner or two, although I have not even decided what I ride in the handicaps.

Taquin de Seuil (Neptune), At Fishers Cross (Albert Bartlett) and Albertas Run (Ryanair) all have good each-way chances. Binocular (Champion Hurdle) needs good ground. I hope we will all come back winners.

[Lester]

I am leaning towards Competitive Edge, winner of his last two, in Monday’s Irish National at Fairyhouse but before then I have a busy time at Haydock on Saturday. Abnaki (2.05) has been placed many few times and one day he will not be able to help but win. Leader Of The Gang (2.40) is my best chance. Shoegazer (3.15) is creeping up the Handicap because of his consistency and has an each-way shot. Balinroab (3.50) is the sort of horse who will gain in confidence from his win at Leicester last time. Bathwick Brave (4.25) was in good form before being brought down at Cheltenham, but is high in the weights while Kandari will be better suited by Haydock than Kempton, where he fell last time.

[Old Vic]

With just a couple of weeks of the jumps season left I thought this would be a good time to reflect on the winter months.

Personally, it has been a good season on several counts; I have achieved the main goal, an 18th jockeys’ title and have ridden two winners at both Cheltenham and Aintree. It is always good to ride winners at those festivals.

That said, to be honest I have had better years. I did not win any of the major Championship races and for the 17th time I did not win the Grand National but At Fishers Cross and My Tent Or Yours are two horses to really look forward to next season.

Hopefully, My Tent Or Yours can improve his way into Champion Hurdle contention while, whether he stays hurdling or goes chasing, At Fishers Cross ultimately has great potential further down the road as a staying chaser. Winning on decent ground at Aintree last weekend certainly opens up a lot more opportunities for him.

Winners-wise I still have roughly 130 to go to get to 4,000, if you take jump winners in Ireland into account – they seemed to for 3,000 – although the next most immediate target is the 80 I need to overtake Willie Carson, who is fourth in the all-time British list of all jockeys.

The season low, of course, was Darlan getting killed in his Champion Hurdle prep at Doncaster. But far, far worse and off the scale was the injury to JT McNamara at Cheltenham. It left a massive cloud over Gold Cup day, a sick feeling in the pit of all jump jockeys’ stomachs and has unquestionably left a major unhealed scar in the weighing room.

I went to see JT on Thursday evening and found him as OK as you could expect anyone in his position. Mentally, he seems extremely strong and he will have to be. His wife Caroline is equally strong and hopefully they can stay positive. He’s in a great hospital and is getting great care.

Saturday is a quiet day and I do not have great expectations at Stratford. Scorer (1.55) needs to improve a lot on his last start, The Bear Trap (2.30) has been very disappointing and it is a long time since See U Bob (3.05) won anything. Dropped back to selling company Not Til Monday (3.40) has a squeak while Irish Cavalier (5.50) is probably my best shot.

[Hoof]

Nasty one today ..sterum fractured is what I heard.