Tony McCoy, who returned from nearly three weeks on the sidelines with a winner on his only ride at Fontwell, said afterwards that he believes he is now “a million [to one] ” to become the first jockey ever to ride 300 winners in a season.

McCoy decided to take a break from race-riding on November 5th having struggled for over a week to overcome the lingering effects of a heavy fall in late October.

He looked much more like the rider who has dominated National Hunt racing for two decades as he steered Southfield Royale, the 2-1 second-favourite, to victory in the two-and-a-half mile novice hurdle, beating Coologue, the 1-2 favourite, into second place.

Target

McCoy confirmed his fitness in time for the three-day Hennessy meeting at Newbury, and in particular to ride More Of That, the World Hurdle winner at Cheltenham in March, at the track on Saturday, but the target of 300 winners, which he was around 5-1 to achieve before his three-week break, now looks beyond him.

“It’s a million,” McCoy said. “You’d never say never, but realistically, it’s a million. One of the lads said to me that I’m 10-1, but it’s a million. You’d need to ride seven winners every week. I did think it was possible at the time, I really thought it was possible and that was the reason I kept going when I did. But you never know, I might get an amazing run.”

Jonjo O’Neill said recently that he felt the jockey had tried to get back into the saddle too soon earlier this month, a view that McCoy now endorses.

“I know I shouldn’t have done, but I wanted to ride 300 winners and I couldn’t afford to have the days off,” McCoy said. “It was purely mind over matter and the body doing what the brain was telling it rather than the other way around. I finally got to the point where I had to accept it wasn’t physically possible to do what I was doing, as I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.”Guardian Service