Tony McCoy talks race wins, broken bones and learning to walk again

Reaching the never before achieved and astonishing landmark of 4,000 winners in a stellar career Tony McCoy has elevated himself to legendary status in the world of steeplechasing. The self effacing 39-year-old Irishman has already won it all – the Grand National, the Gold Cup, the King George VI Chase and nearly two decades of being hailed as champion jump jockey.

But  for the father-of two and winner of the  BBC Sports Personality of the Year award the unique success has taken a grim toll on his body. He is a permanent fully paid up member of the walking wounded-the original Bionic Man. He  has suffered more injuries than a serial car crash victim in his 21-year professional career.

"During every race" says McCoy,"an ambulance trails the riders around the course. You know that sometimes you are going to end up in the back of that ambulance."

Last week, to illustrate the litany of injuries suffered by McCoy's friend Barry Geraghty Channel 4's The Morning Line featured a skeleton festooned with coloured stickers to highlight the profusion of fractures which have blighted Geraghty's career.

Should a similar exercise be repeated in the case of Tony McCoy, the most prolific jump jockey of all time, the skull and assembly of bones would be virtually obscured by the markers indicating the sheer scale of the career threatening injuries endured by McCoy.
 
As the teetotal, non smoking McCoy prepares to enjoy a celebratory soft drink with fellow jockeys in a pub near his home to mark his amazing achievement  his  body surely deserves some sort of  accolade for the sheer scale of affliction heaped  on it from head to toe in McCoy's brilliant career. It would  require a medical dictionary to properly catalogue all  his breaks, fractures and strains.

McCoy calculates that in his quest for  greatness he has had at least 1,000 falls (the average for an ordinary jockey is one ejection from the saddle for every eleven races) and has broken most of the 206 bones in his frame musing : "My ankle, my leg, my arm, my wrist, my middle vertebrae, my lower vertebrae, both shoulder blades, collarbones, chin bones...need I go on?"

The full, official list is impossible to catalogue as McCoy has forgotten some of the minor accidents which have marked his stellar career including numerous broken noses, fingers, shins, and ankles-not to mention frequent stitching caused by kicks from rogue hooves.

But the self effacing Irishman does put his hands up to the following: Broken middle and lower vertebrae, both  shoulder blades, collarbones(3),  ribs, an ankle, cheekbones, wrist, leg and had his teeth kicked out. What does it cost to insure him? "It doesn't," he grins. "I'm uninsurable but not because I'm priceless or worth too much. It's because no one wants to f***ing touch me!"

Playing with Tiger Woods in a charity golf tournament three years age he astonished the  famous golfer by disclosing just some of  the   mishaps he has suffered  for his sport. "Tiger had that knee surgery and we got to talking about sporting injuries," recalls McCoy. "I mentioned my broken back and shoulder blades and cheek and leg and ribs and the rest, he was just totally amazed. He just kept asking and asking questions."

To keep mounting  horses and pointing them at hazardous jumps requires a a remarkably disciplined individual. McCoy is that in spades.
McCoy rises at dawn  to have the first of several hot baths to keep his weight in check.