McCoy: I would still be champion riding today

Ten years on from an on-the-spot announcement at Newbury that he would retire at the end of the season, Sir Anthony McCoy reckons he would still be champion jockey were he back riding.

McCoy shocked the racing world on February 7, 2015 when, after recording his 200th winner of the campaign aboard Mr Mole in the Game Spirit Chase, he told Channel 4’s Rishi Persad as he conducted a post-race interview that the season would be his last.

Speaking to William Hill for a video entitled ‘Sir AP McCoy: 10 Years On’, the 20-times champion said: “I rode my fastest-ever 100th winner that season, and I thought to myself — I’m actually getting better.

“I’d known for five years that I was going to retire. I’d been lucky enough to be champion jump jockey 15 years in a row then, and I thought, if I win five more, that’ll be 20, and that should be it.

“Newbury holds a special place for me, and I actually get a bit emotional thinking about it now. I always had this fear that people thought I wasn’t as good as I used to be, but more than that, I feared that myself. What if one day I went out there and thought, ‘I’m not as good as I was?’.

“Do I think I could’ve carried on? Do I think I’d have won a few more championships? Yeah, I do. I actually think if I were back riding today, I’d still be champion jockey.”