A True Great - But Not The Best

Tony McCoy's decision to retire towards the end of the season ensures a Brian O'Driscoll-style long farewell to the great jockey, something only the most begrudging of begrudgers will begrudge him. Every racing fan should make the most of the time such a benchmark figure remains in action. It also allows plenty of time for Martin Pipe's verdict on McCoy as "the best we've ever seen" to get cemented into the public consciousness. But how correct a verdict is it?

The most successful definitely: surely the most resilient: probably the most significant in terms of popular impact and possibly the most revolutionary in terms of professionalism: but the best?

By definition there's no definitive answer to such a subjective question. It is also essentially trivial, but that's not the same as irrelevant because paying Pipe's words no attention reduces them to meaninglessness. And Pipe has never said anything meaningless. As judges go his credentials are impeccable.

What his latest judgement does prove however is the difference in how McCoy's abilities are perceived on both sides of the Irish Sea. Pipe is going with the consensus in Britain. It is noticeable how different the consensus is here: maybe not publicly, but in private certainly, it seems many industry professionals here don't rate McCoy close to the best they've seen.

Since we are in a vintage period for National Hunt riding talent - a period defined to a large extent by McCoy's innate drive and professionalism - there is no contradiction in acknowledging McCoy's undoubted status as a seminal figure and people still applying their critical faculties.

Over two decades of watching this game has seen this corner come to a personal, prejudicial and hopelessly unscientific top-five ranking which has zero credentials to recommend it compared to Mr Pipe. But here goes anyway:

1 - Richard Dunwoody: There is precedent for obsessively driven jockeys from the North of Ireland. At his best Dunwoody was as close to flawless as makes little difference. Strong, stylish, tactically superb and almost manically determined, he was also a supreme horseman. Towards the end of his career Dunwoody was effectively riding with one arm, and was still the best. His tragedy was not being able to choose when to exit.

2 - Ruby Walsh: Has there ever been a more obviously intelligent rider? Watching that unobtrusive figure in a race is a split-second barometer of where a race is really unfolding. Coldly analytical out of the saddle, a similarly cool detachment in it has contributed towards a remarkable big race tally and a record-equalling tenth jockeys championship this season still looks on.

3 - Barry Geraghty: McCoy has carved out his reputation with day-to-day excellence. Geraghty won a couple of jockey's championships early in his career and then forgot about it to become a peerless big-race master. The ability to perform when the pressure is at its most intense is the ultimate test of any sportsman. Geraghty has passed it too many times for it to be dismissed as chance.

4 - Tony McCoy: A statistical freak: no jockey has squeezed more from their talent through sheer force of will. No natural horseman he nevertheless found his own way of efficiently getting over the obstacles. Racing's ultimate proof that greatness is not dependant on raw talent alone: McCoy is great in a sense that more apparent natural talents could never be.

5 - Peter Scudamore: Caught the tail-end of his career, a career built on teak-tough reliability. Those able to gauge such things insist there hasn't been a tougher customer in the saddle. Scudamore may have been no stylist in the mould of his great rival Johny Francome but the substance was immense. It's no coincidence Pipe opted for a young McCoy to subsequently occupy the Pond House hot-seat.

There's also no doubt that McCoy's power in a finish is still remarkable as Carlingford Lough's Hennessy success proved. The John Kiely trained horse goes into a wide-open Cheltenham Gold Cup with a live chance which will be hugely popular with so many who admire Kiely.

But just how wide open the staying chasing division is was proved by that Hennessy. The current Gold Cup winner Lord Windermere started twice the odds of a horse that won a handicap off 149 on his previous start and Foxrock duly had the blue-riband hero eight lengths behind him.

Maybe Silviniaco Conti is a stand-out next month but you suspect that around Cheltenham's New Course Sunday's first three will all have realistic shouts if they line up.

There were any number of festival clues from the other Grade 1's at Leopardstown and although Nicholls Canyon keeps getting shoved out of the limelight by more high-profile stable companions he still looked very impressive the way he kept lengthening in the Deloitte.

Dermot Weld's Windsor Park ran a fine second in that race but a hunch says giving up on his stable companion Silver Concorde back in fourth might be premature. The consensus was the ground rode a little dead and Silver Concorde's proven Cheltenham credentials on better going might yet make him a festival player.

Anyone doubting Cheltenham's all-enveloping dominance over the entire racing year will have been disabused of such notions by examination of Paddy Power's top-twenty turnover races in 2014. The Aintree Grand National came top but seventeen of the other nineteen were Cheltenham events, headed by the Gold Cup, the World Hurdle and the Supreme, contributing towards what the firm describes as "the biggest week of the year for the Irish layer."

Just one flat race - the Epsom Derby - figures in the twenty but what stands out from an Irish racing point of view is that the Irish layer appears notably impervious to the charms of Irish racing. One home race figures and the Irish Grand National is down at No.17. No doubt there are any number of fancy statistical reasons for such a state of affairs but it hardly encourages hope that certain prejudices among Joe Public about betting on the home product may have eased.

Talking of statistics, the Turf Club's 2014 Integrity recorded a seventeen per cent increase in the number of careless riding inquiries. Is anyone surprised by that? A rulebook which all but encourages riders to chance their arm and take one for the team practically guarantees such problems.