Tony McCoy is searching for a full stop, and there is a good chance that he may find it at Aintree Racecourse when he partners Shutthefrontdoor in the Grand National on Saturday night.
Last month, before the Cheltenham Festival, one of the greatest sportsmen to grace any stretch of turf said that were he to win Britain’s idiosyncratic steeplechase he would keep on riding until his proposed retirement at the end of the season later this month.
To underline how the shifting sands are swirling around the consciousness of the rider, 40, he has now said that should Shutthefrontdoor prevail in the gruelling race, his illustrious career will come to an end as he crosses the winning line.
Unlike British rower Steve Redgrave, who once said that anybody could shoot him should they see him in a boat again before he subsequently won the gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, there will be no epilogue to this story.
For 19 consecutive years, McCoy, also known as “AP”, has been champion jockey in Britain. He is so far clear of perennial runner-up Richard Johnson this season that were he to add to his long list of injuries in the 39-runner melee over the spruce fences, he would still be crowned for a 20th time when the British National Hunt Season ends in two weeks.
No one knows what the next chapter of McCoy’s life will be, including McCoy.
Tickets to see the “Fight of the Century” between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have been booked for a friend’s 50th birthday, and he plans to take to the plush greens of the golf course in a bid to slake his thirst for winning.
“Maybe I am an obsessive kind of person and need something to challenge me,” he said. “The regime of my life is going to change. I am going to try to be happy playing golf.
“Maybe in a couple of months I’ll find my life is a void, I don’t know. There are a few things I would like to do that I have never been able to do before.”
Speaking after he won the Aintree Hurdle, the feature race on Thursday, aboard Jezki, he said: “I have mixed emotions because I would love to win the National, but I don’t want it to be my final ride. I really don’t want to retire, but if I win the race I’ll do retirement after that.”
McCoy’s obsession with victory is dangerous.
As a young man, his narrow focus on the prize made him hot-headed and blinkered to the outside world.
Talk to him about his inability to land the Grand National from 14 rides before he finally won the race in 2010 on Don’t Push It and he does not concentrate on his sole success.
It is a sorry tale of failure, in his book.
There have been four more rides without a victory since, and with his 20th attempt in the race the Northern Irishman will break the record for the number of rides in the race set by Tom Olliver, who was successful three times, the last of which was in 1853.
He has ridden more winners in jumps racing than any other jockey but, as he points out, he has also guided more losers than anybody else.
Shutthefrontdoor starts as favourite on account of his illustrious partner, rather than than anything he has achieved on the racecourse.
As an eight year old, he may lack the stamina that is a characteristic of older winners recently and is a fundamental requirement to last the full 7,141 metres of the race.
It makes the 5,100 metres of the Al Ain Marathon Series final appear like a stroll down the white sands of Jumeirah Beach.
Shutthefrontdoor also looks to be too wet behind his pricked ears to tackle the 30 fences that stand in his way after just six runs over jumps.
Numbersixvalverde became the most inexperienced horse to win the Grand National in a generation when, in 2006, he powered to victory on his 11th steeplechase start.
As is the method of trainer Jonjo O’Neill, Shutthefrontdoor will go into the race without having jumped a training fence of Grand National proportions. O’Neill is relying on the skills of his jockey to make up the difference.
“His feedback and schooling of young horses is his greatest strength,” he said at his Jackdaws Castle base last week. “He is brilliant, really. I get more kick out of having him here, more than on a racecourse, sometimes, when I see him schooling.
“He schools a horse that doesn’t jump well and it runs off left or right, but next time he comes up and the horse is a straight as a die. You think you’re looking at the wrong horse – that is AP at his best. I often come back to a schooling morning with a smile on my face, thinking I’ve had that all to myself.”
It was O’Neill who trained Don’t Push It, a horse who was as mad but talented as Shutthefrontdoor is docile and screams potential.
O’Neill is in a small band of former top-class National Hunt jockeys who never won the Grand National. In eight attempts, he failed to complete the course.
O’Neill’s relief at Don’t Push It’s victory is still tangible, and having savoured the taste of victory as a trainer, he believes that to be part of the concluding and greatest instalment in McCoy’s life as a professional rider would be something sent down from above.
“You couldn’t get higher than that,” he said. “When he won on Don’t Push It we had some great celebrations, and these would probably go on a little longer.
“It was a magical feeling in 2010, it was something you dream about and we were all part of it.
“When it is your first time at anything, you never forget it. It would be the pinnacle for me. It would be like a miracle.
“I’ve never been involved in a miracle, but I’m sure that is what it would feel like.”
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