Former jump champions rely on instinct on return to the saddle | Greg Wood
Champion jockeys may retire but the will to win never dies. “What might expose them a bit is if we can get them to put the jumps up a bit higher,” Tony McCoy says, as he looks ahead to a show-jumping competition against a team of Flat jockeys, including Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore, at Olympia in December. “When you get the jumps up good and high you have to think about it, and hopefully we can play some mind games with them beforehand.”
For a driven man like McCoy competition could never mean simply having fun. He was at the London International Horse Show last year when, in the second annual jump-off between National Hunt and the level, the Flat riders came out on top. “I was a bit disappointed that our younger jump jockeys got beaten by the Flat jockeys,” he says. “I said: ‘That’s it. I’m going to get a bit of experience in.’ Hopefully it will pay dividends.”
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