Television producers are constantly looking for the right kind of fit for the programmes that they are in charge of putting together. When said programmes are sports-based, they obviously have a wealth of former players or coaches that they can turn to on a regular basis, but there is never a guarantee that they’ll be able to work well on screen.
In the case of Tony McCoy, it is unlikely that the latter factor was considered much, bearing in mind the fact that he is one of the best jump jockeys ever to sit in the saddle, so the thoughts, ideas and information that he would be able to put across would be invaluable to the watching audience.
McCoy in the Media
When Tony McCoy finally hung up his boots at Sandown Park in the April of 2015, horse racing lost arguably its greatest ever competitor, but that allowed television to gain one of the sport’s sharpest minds for a punditry role. The transition from jockey to pundit was already well underway before he retired and the journey from the weighing room to in front of the camera proved to be a natural one. McCoy’s first foray into broadcasting came whilst he was still a jockey, joining BBC Radio 5 Live in the October of 2013 as a racing pundit every Friday evening on the 5 Live Sport programme hosted by Dan Walker.
It was, perhaps, a low-key beginning for a man with his talent, but it allowed McCoy to find his feet in the media without the pressure of being on camera, establishing that he had something to say that would be worth listening to. Broadcasters had been keen to enlist his services even before retirement and when he did eventually leave the saddle, the move to television was an obvious one. In the November of 2015, just months after his retirement from racing, he joined Channel 4 Racing as a pundit. The timing made sense, given that Channel 4 held the terrestrial racing rights at that point and McCoy added credibility.
Highly Sought After Pundit
By the end of the year, he was already a regular feature on Channel 4 Racing, with his punditry well-received. His analysis was notably unvarnished from a man who retained the competitive directness that had defined his riding career. The arrangement with Channel 4 proved relatively short-lived, however, not because of any falling out, but simply because the landscape of British racing coverage shifted. In the January of 2016, it was announced that ITV had regained horse racing rights from Channel 4 and McCoy moved over with the racing, being confirmed as part of ITV’s on-screen team when the channel launched.
Joining main presenter Ed Chamberlin and a host of other names, McCoy himself was characteristically measured on the subject at the time, saying that he felt lucky to still be part of a sport he was passionate about and that racing would always be a huge part of his life. Niall Sloane, the Director of Sport for ITV, described McCoy as a figure who transcended the sport of racing. Since making the switch, McCoy has remained a fixture on ITV Racing, offering audiences unparalleled insight, with his analysis frequently centring on the mindset and split-second decisions made by jockeys under pressure.
Television & Radio
Not that the former jump jockey has limited himself to straight racing coverage. Instead, McCoy has appeared on a broad range of television and radio platforms. His credits include appearances on Sunday Brunch, Play to the Whistle, A Question of Sport and numerous other shows. Perhaps the most significant media project of his post-retirement life, however, was one that predated the punditry work itself. Being AP, directed by Anthony Wonke, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, subsequently topping the iTunes chart following a theatrical run.
AP McCoy the Jockey
Although modern audiences will know Sir Anthony Peter McCoy larger for his work as a pundit on ITV Racing, those old enough to remember him as a jockey will wax lyrical about his ability. Born in Moneyglass, County Antrim in Northern Ireland on the fourth of May 1974, McCoy is considered by many to be the best jump jockey the sport has ever seen. His first winner came at Thurles in Ireland on the 26th of March 1992, when a 17-year-old McCoy took the Jim Bolger-trained Legal Steps into the Winners’ Enclosure. He was an apprentice for Bolger during the formative part of his career, breaking his leg on the gallops early on.
In many ways, the combination of the win and the broken bone was a sign of things to come for the jockey, who enjoyed and endured plenty more of both during the course of his career. He began riding in England in 1994, with his first win coming at Exeter in the September of that year when he rode Chickabiddy to victory for trainer Gordon Edwards. As a conditional jockey for trainer Toby Balding, McCoy won the 1995 Conditional Jump Jockeys title and within 12 months had won the Champion Jockey title for the first time. His excellence in the saddle soon caught the attention of trainers like Martin Pipe and Paul Nicholls.
By the end of the 1990s, McCoy’s relationship with Pipe had seen him set a new record for winners in a National Hunt season with 253, as well as equalling the record of winners at the Cheltenham Festival and becoming the fastest jockey to 100 wins in a season. The overall record for wins in a season belonged to the aforementioned Edwards, who had taken 269 wins, but McCoy set a new benchmark when he won 289 races across the course of a season. He also managed to surpass the record of Richard Dunwoody’s all-time jumps wins, becoming the first jump jockey to notch up 2,500 winners, hitting 3,000 wins not long after.
McCoy had won virtually every major race there was to win in jump racing at least once, from the Cheltenham Gold Cup to the King George VI Chase via the Champion Hurdle and the Queen Mother Champion Chase. The only one that eluded him was the Grand National, marking up three third-place finishes in the Aintree race. He was too good a jockey not to win the ‘World’s Greatest Steeplechase’ eventually, however, and it was his 15th attempt that saw him take the Jonjo O’Neill-trained Don’t Push It into the Winners’ Enclosure. It was also an O’Neill-trained horse that gave him his 4,000th win, Mountain Tunes.
In some ways, the fact that McCoy would go on to work with Channel 4 Racing after his retirement as a jockey was fitting, given his decision to announce his planned retirement on the channel when he won the Game Spirit Chase on Mr Mole. That was his 200th victory of the 2014-2015 season, drawing his remarkable career to a close at Sandown in the April of 2015. By the time he hung up his spurs, McCoy had won 4,358 winners, been named the Champion Jump Jockey a record 20 consecutive times and became the first jockey to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year when he won the award in 2010 before being knighted in the January of 2016.