Top 40 Tony McCoy Quotes

When I was a kid, if someone had asked who I’d meet if it could be anyone in the world, it would’ve been Liam Brady.

There are many tough sides to being a jockey. Injury is something we all dread, but spending lengthy periods in the bath or the sauna just to shed a few pounds can be an exhausting and draining experience.

Racing is a great sport, but we need people to come along and see that for themselves. Maybe they’re not used to going racing or haven’t been before, but I think people get a taste for it; they do come back.

The criticism does not hurt because I have always been my own worst critic. I wouldn’t say I don’t respect other people’s opinions, but my opinion is the most important.

My first winner was on Legal Steps, in Ireland, at Thurles, in March 1992. I rode for Jim Bolger, and his stable jockey was Christy Roche.

If summer racing didn’t exist, I could go on holiday, yes, because nobody else would then be riding winners; but as long it goes ahead, I’ll do it for the reason that I want to ride more winners than anyone else.

When I started off riding, you dream about being champion jockey. Then I wanted to be champion jockey again. Then I wanted to ride 200 winners in a season. Then, when there was a chance of riding more winners than Richard Dunwoody, that was my goal.

When I’m injured, I eat everything – proper junk. That’s the one thing about being injured so much, I get to treat myself.

I like challenging myself. I’m not a person who likes not to work.

I’m very lucky to live my life through a sport that I love. I’m in a very privileged position that my work is my hobby.

I get butterflies before going out to ride every day, but they disappear as soon as I am on a horse, and I think that is the same for most jockeys. Then it is just down to you and the horse, and there is a certain freedom in that.

Even though people involved in racing think that it has a big sporting stage, it is a minority sport compared to some of the other high-profile events: football, Formula One or golf.

I know from sitting around with injuries how difficult life will be without racing and riding winners.

In my opinion, the power of the mind in sport is vital. If you can overpower those physical risks mentally, you can get your body round it physically. I’ve made my body do things because of my mind that it shouldn’t have been able to do.

I’ve always got a sweet tooth. I have chocolate hidden in places that nobody knows about.

Many of us in the jockeys’ room are wasting to ride many pounds below our natural weight, but all the while you are doing that, you also want to ensure that you are as strong as possible so that you can give your mount every possible chance in a race.

If you break your sternum or your ribs, you can still move. It’s going to hurt, but if you can cope with it, you’ll do it.

If you’ve got a regular feed of winners, you control your mind to do it. It becomes a must. If you didn’t have that regular flow of winning, whether you could get yourself to do that, I don’t know. It’s a lot easier when you know the next day you can win and you can win and win, it’s worth doing it.

Racing may be a minority sport, but I wouldn’t swap it for all the money in the world.

I never had a written contract, was never officially a stable jockey.

You always get a buzz from winning. Winning is… everything.

I feel pressure every day. It is only pressure that I put on myself, but I would expect all professional sportspeople to feel pressure to perform their best whenever they are at work.

There is no place for arrogance or complacency in racing because you are up there one minute and on your backside the next.

The day I go out there and don’t want to win is the day I will give up.

If you ask most trainers who have ridden which pressure is greater – watching your horse or riding it – they will tell you it is harder watching it because you have no control over what happens.

I’ve appreciated every winner. I love them all.

When I was 18, I broke my leg, and my shin came right through – like I had two knees.

A helmet is the most important part of any jockey’s kit because of the number of falls you take, so I wouldn’t want to be wearing anything on the track unless it had been thoroughly tested.

It’s not hard to motivate myself because once you get a taste for winning races, you simply don’t want to do anything else. You get a buzz from it. You want it every day. Only someone who has experienced winning can understand how good it feels.

For eight or 10 years, I got wrapped up in chasing records. Everything was a number. Didn’t matter what I won, it was a number. Every horse I rode was a number.

I’ve been on some very good horses which have died, and that’s very tough to take. But as much as we love the horses, and care for them, human life is obviously more important. Some good friends of mine have died or been paralysed while doing a job we all love.

Doctors are fantastic, but they err on the side of caution. But you can push yourself. You’re not going to die from pain.

I think I’ve always used the whip in the correct way. I see marked horses every day, and it’s not a pretty sight, but I’ve never marked a horse. Never.

I was told that there’s near on a million to one chance that I would be able to have children.

I probably don’t look healthy, but I have never got to the stage where I thought I was going to pass out.

I have found the right way to deal with my diet, largely through trial and error, but also by having good people around me all the time, and they have given me the right advice for my body.

I’ve ridden 3,651 winners, if that’s any good to you. I don’t count the falls. I count the winners.

I suppose I’m happy when I know I’ve given a horse a good ride, no matter where it is. I like playing golf in the summer; I’m happy when I hit a good shot, and I enjoy watching Arsenal playing beautiful football, but overall I can’t believe you can be happy when you’re not winning. I honestly can’t accept that.

Sir Gordon Richards was the most successful jockey – flat or jumps – there’s ever been: champion jockey for 26 years. He set a record of 269 winners in the season 55 years before I broke it. That was my greatest achievement.

I am disappointed when I don’t win, because I want to believe I can win on every horse I ride, which is a ridiculous thing to think. Even if I’m on a horse that I have woken up thinking has no chance, by the time I’ve reached the course, I’ll have convinced myself that it can win and will be disappointed if it doesn’t.