AP's 4000th!

We would like to be among the first to congratulate Tony McCoy on reaching the amazing 4,000 winner landmark in a quite extraordinary career.   The milestone was achieved when he gave Mountain Tunes a stupendous ride to claim a last gasp victory at Towcester this afternoon.

We are delighted to have been a part of A P’s remarkable success story and we still vividly remember his first winner for the stable when successful aboard Crosula at Hereford on 1^st June 1995.  This was the first of an incredible 1,154 winners for Martin, the last of which was Paro at Taunton on 24^th April 2006.  Since taking over at the helm of Pond House David has continued to supply A P with a steady stream of winners (62 at the time of writing), meaning that between them they have supplied the champ with 1,216 winners in total (or 30.4% of his career successes!).

Incidentally McCoy’s first winner in this country was aboard Chickabiddy at Exeter on 7^th September 1994, a mare trained by local permit-holder Gordon Edwards, whose daughter, Gemma just so happens to be one of David’s secretaries!

There are so many highlights to pick from that we could go on all day, but the obvious ‘standouts’ are the eleven Cheltenham Festival winners he rode for the yard including Champion Hurdle winner Make A Stand, and the three Cheltenham ‘Open’ winners, Cyfor Malta, Lady Cricket and Shooting Light.  Other notable highlights include that memorable victory of Pridwell over triple Champion Hurdle winner Istabraq at Aintree, while Valfonic’s success at Warwick on 2^nd April 2002 marked his historic 270^th success of that season, breaking the all-time record of the great Sir Gordon Richards.  A P went on to finish that campaign with a scarcely believable 289 winners.

McCoy’s steely determination, almost superhuman strength and sublime skill stand him head and shoulders above his contemporaries and he will continue to be the benchmark to which every subsequent jockey should aspire long after he decides to hang up his breeches.

In the meantime his hunger for winners appears undiminished by time and he shows no sign of slowing up.  We are truly blessed to have witnessed this very special talent who is such a good ambassador and has done so much to promote our sport…long may he continue and here’s to the next 1,000!

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Our three runners yesterday all ran solid races.  Guess Again (pictured above, and apologies for the grainy image) was successful at Warwick in the conditional jockeys' chase under Kieron Edgar - a good effort, especially as I thought that he wanted better ground.  He is lightly raced for an eight year old and could continue to progress.  Makadamia was a promising runner-up in the closing bumper on the card, she was beaten only a head under Sam Waley-Cohen, while Qalinas ran a big race at Chepstow, finishing third at 20/1 under 10lbs conditional jockey Anthony Fox - all three should be paying their way this season.

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon - two on the flat at Lingfield and Wolverhampton as well as jumps cards at Musselburgh and Towcester.  A P McCoy needs just one more winner to reach his incredible 4,000th winner following success aboard Minella For Steak at Chepstow yesterday - the circus moves onto Towcester this afternoon and the front page of today's Post says that McCoy's daughter Eve expects the milestone to be reached before her birthday tomorrow, so no pressure there then!  McCoy has two booked rides for his boss J P McManus aboard Church Field and Mountain Tunes.  The stable has one runner at the meeting this afternoon, Prideofthecastle in the novices' hurdle at 3.10pm - I hope that McCoy wins on his first mount of the day as we take him on with our dual winning bumper performer!  I see that bookmakers are already betting on whether A P will reach 5,000 winners - at present he is a 6/1 chance with Ladbrokes and I wouldn't want to be betting against him.

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I see that the Irish Turf Club have advised amateur rider Robbie McNamara to improve his communication skills.  I wonder what he said (or didn't say) to the trainer at the Galway Festival.  He failed to ride two horses due to weight problems...it is always a good idea to let your trainer know if you are going to struggle to do a light weight!

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Arsenal enjoyed a great win last night as they beat Dortmund 1-0 away from home.  They are certainly a team in form, as are Chelsea who won 3-0.  Samuel Eto'o produced a great first goal - he blocked the goalkeepers kick and iit deflected straight past the keeper and into the net!

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Finally, just in case you missed it earlier in the week, below is yet another chance for you to see Sam Welton's video interview...