After passing his 4,000th career victory in 2013, national hunt jockey A.P. McCoy has cemented his legacy as one of the greatest sportsmen to ever grace racing.
His tenacity, determination and sheer will to win have seen him collect victories along the way on the biggest stages national hunt racing has to offer, and many now see him as the greatest jockey to have ever lived.
After passing the 4,000 win milestone, McCoy will more than likely go on to win his 19th consecutive Champion Jockey title.
He will also have won the most national hunt races of any jockey in the history of the sport. McCoy will be hoping for more victories at the 2014 Cheltenham Festival, and the Coral Cheltenham odds are now online, with McCoy featuring in all of the biggest races.
McCoy has previously stated that every season he aims for 125 wins and takes it from there; this is a tough target for an average jockey, but for McCoy, whose career includes wins in some of the biggest races on the circuit, it is usually a mark he passes with ease.
However, how does McCoy match up with some of the other great national hunt jockeys?
Great National Hunt Jockeys
John Francome: Francome was a seven time Champion Jockey in a career that lasted between 1976 and 1985. Taking a total of 1,138 victories in that time, Francome is considered one of the great all time national hunt jockeys.
Richard Dunwoody: Despite only taking the Champion Jockey title three times in his career, Dunwoody won an impressive 1,699 national hunt races. He also won the Jump Jockey of the Year award five times throughout an excellent career.
Peter Scudamore: Scudamore led one of the all-time great national hunt careers, with a total of 1,678 winning rides in a career that also featured eight Champion Jockey titles. At the time, the total of 1,678 career wins was a record, and Scurdamore also broke the record number of wins in a single season with 221 in 1988-89.
Although there have been some extremely impressive national hunt jockeys over time, the sheer number of important wins, total career wins and Champion Jockey titles sets A.P. McCoy apart from the rest in the grand scheme of things. The determination and skill that McCoy has displayed over his record-breaking career have set a number of records that are not likely to soon be broken, and scarily for other jockeys, he is still piling up the victories.
