Racing: The Brian Viner Interview: Tony McCoy - McCoy the jumping magician

`I have a Kit-Kat or a Mars bar in the morning and another in the evening. Nothing else. It's a sacrifice but it's worth it'

LAST SUNDAY, in the shadow of the Dublin mountains, a remarkable horse called Istabraq - anointed Champion Hurdler at Cheltenham last year - cantered past Leopardstown's winning post and into Irish racing's hall of fame. Later, the ease with which Charlie Swan steered Istabraq past the accomplished French Holly to win the Irish Champion Hurdle for the second successive year was the talk of The Tetrarch bar. "He's a piece of cake for Cheltenham again, an absolute piece of cake," said an elderly Irishman in a battered trilby, to nobody in particular.

Leopardstown's bar is named after one of the greatest racehorses of all time. The Tetrarch, in a glorious career just before the First World War, was never beaten. But Istabraq was, against all the odds. On Grand National day last year, he was hot favourite at 4-7 to win the Aintree Hurdle. Third favourite was Pridwell, at 6-1. But Pridwell had Tony McCoy, the young genius, aboard and McCoy "gave the best ride I've ever given, and ever will give" to win by a head.

It was McCoy's sweetest victory of the season, and there were 252 others to choose from, a record that leaves all other jump jockeys standing, including his good friend, Richard Dunwoody. In under five seasons, 24-year-old McCoy has ridden more than 700 winners. He has been champion National Hunt jockey for the last two years, leaving racing sages shaking their heads in wonderment. "I'm always reluctant to compare generations, but he's one of the very best I've ever seen, an absolutely remarkable talent," says Sir Peter O'Sullevan. But Sir Peter's praise is qualified, of which more later.

For all his prodigious talent, McCoy did not ride a winner at Leopardstown on Sunday. And in the big race his mount, Black Queen, trailed Istabraq by miles. Afterwards, McCoy is more than happy to join everyone else in paying homage to the Champion Hurdler. "I don't think he'll get beat now for a long, long time," says this softly spoken, unemotional Ulsterman, straining for a suitably powerful sentiment. "I'd give anything to ride Istabraq, I would, I'd give up all the others to ride him."

We are talking in the Leopardstown weighing room, the huge scales a stark reminder of McCoy's perennial problem - his weight. He is tall for a jockey, around 5ft 10in, and riding at as low as 10st is, as he bluntly puts it, "a killer". I am powerfully reminded of The Fast Show's barmy yokel Jesse - "this week, I have been mostly eating bugger-all!" - as McCoy talks me through his daily weight-loss regime.

"Most days, I have a slice of toast, then lie in a hot bath for an hour to get up a sweat. I have a sauna at the racecourse, and then go and ride. On the way home I might stop at a service station and have a bar of chocolate and a Diet Coke. And that's it, basically. This week, I'll have the odd cup of tea with lots of sugar in it. But in weeks when I'm doing 10 stone, I live on chocolate. I might have a Kit-Kat or a Mars Bar in the morning and another in the evening. Nothing else. Nothing at all. It's hard, and it's a sacrifice, but it's well worth it."

A pounds 28,000 Saab and a snazzy Jeep are the material rewards for this sacrifice, not to mention a brief flirtation between his chequebook and a large house in 10 acres near Newbury. He decided not to buy it because does not have the time to look after the land. He is too busy working. For when McCoy talks about food deprivation being worthwhile, he is not referring to the trappings of success, merely the riding of winners. It is an obsession, and arguably a dangerous one.

Last November, a deliciously named nutritionist called Professor Lean told Pacemaker magazine that the calorific intake of some leading jockeys leaves them unfit to drive, "much less ride a horse at speed". Muscle- wasting leading to heart disease, dehydration leading to kidney and liver failure, nausea, dizziness and sudden irrationality are all potential by-products of jockeys' poor diets, said Professor Lean. McCoy is unmoved. "I probably don't look healthy, but I have never got to the stage where I thought I was going to pass out," he says, slightly inadequately.

Actually, he looks healthy enough to me, but maybe that's because he has just spent four days at his parents' home near Toomebridge, County Antrim. "My mother's been feeding me up," he says. "Steaks, chops, chicken, all kinds of stuff. I've put on 10lb." What does his mother make of his two-Kit-Kats-a-day regime? "She wouldn't necessarily know," he says, with a twinkle in his eye. There is a keen sense of humour lurking somewhere deep down, and occasionally it surfaces. For instance, when I tell him that he has a look of the footballer Michael Owen his reply is swift. "You're definitely not looking in my wallet," he says.

Anthony Peter McCoy - later to become the AP McCoy of race-card legend - was just two when he was first plonked on horseback by his father, a joiner who also bred a few horses in a field behind the family bungalow. McCoy Snr soon recognised his son's natural flair for riding. And there was obviously sporting ability in the genes; another son, Colm, became an all-Ireland boxing champion.

For most of his teens McCoy hoped to become a Flat jockey. His hero - "an absolutely brilliant judge of pace" - was Steve Cauthen. But he grew too big for the flat, and rode his first hurdle race at Leopardstown in March 1994. He fell at the first. As a portent of things to come, it was like Tiger Woods shanking his first shot in professional golf. That summer McCoy moved to England, and quickly won a reputation for turning unfancied horses into winners. The most celebrated of these was Mr Mulligan, 20- 1 winner of the 1997 Cheltenham Gold Cup.

"Three weeks beforehand he was desperate," McCoy recalls. "If I could have got off him, I would've. If you'd seen him in training, you'd have said he had no chance. But on the day he was different. When we got to the start I remember saying to Charlie Swan: "This fella's buzzin'."

Racing cognoscenti are mostly of the opinion that nobody but McCoy - not even John Francome in his pomp - could have steered Mr Mulligan home that day. Endearingly, though, McCoy prefers to give credit to horse and trainer before claiming any for himself. He now rides principally for Martin Pipe, for whom his admiration knows no bounds. "It's just like someone said to me the other day: why would I want to ride for anyone else when I'm already riding for God?"

That might be pitching it a little strong, but McCoy firmly believes that, with Pipe, anything is possible. Could they one day go through a card, Frankie Dettori-style? He shrugs. "It depends whether M C Pipe wants it badly enough. He's tried a few times, and he's had five winners in a day, but you need a lot of luck."

So what now for McCoy, as he almost masochistically drags himself from Perth one day, to Newton Abbot the next, sitting in the car in his sweatsuit with the heating turned up, making a Kit-Kat go, quite literally, a very long way? He has won the Scottish National on Belmont King. How about the Grand National?

"I would love the prestige," he says. "But it's not the best horse race. The Queen Mother Champion Chase, that's a proper race. I want to win that one more."

In last year's Grand National McCoy rode the enigmatic Challenger Du Luc, who fell at the first. It was an eloquent summary of racing's ups and downs, for just 50 minutes earlier McCoy had ridden Pridwell to that famous victory over Istabraq. In so doing, though, McCoy was judged to have used his whip excessively, and copped a six-day ban. Since then, he has spent nearly 40 days on suspension, and deservedly, according to Sir Peter O'Sullevan.

"My admiration for his horsemanship is absolutely unqualified. But he should use the whip less, and I've told him so. It would not in any way diminish his remarkable capacity to motivate a horse."

McCoy, unsurprisingly, disagrees. "I think I've always used the whip in the correct way," he says. "I see marked horses every day and it's not a pretty sight, but I've never marked a horse. Never. The thing is, I'm an easy target. If stewards see me in a finish, the first thing they do is wind back the tape to have a look. There are other jockeys with similar whip actions to me, and they haven't been suspended." McCoy warms to his theme. "In other countries, like America, I think racing is run by racing people. Here, it is run by any Tom, Dick and Harry."

Which is as maybe, but Tom, Dick and Harry have, as it were, the whip hand. As long as McCoy remembers that, then he is a dead cert to beat Peter Scudamore's record of 1,678 winners and become the most successful jump jockey of all time.