Sir Anthony McCoy was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours, having won the National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship 20 years in a row prior to his retirement, with 4,358 winners to his name, the previous April. However, in 2010, he finally won the Grand National, after 14 previous unsuccessful attempts, and was promoted to favouritism for BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
He duly won the prestigious title, beating darts player Phil Taylor and heptathlete Jessica Ennis into second and third place respectively, from a shortlist that also included cyclist Mark Cavendish, diver Tom Daley, boxer David Haye, golfers Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood, cricketer Graeme Swann and skeleton bobsleigh racer Amy Williams. In so doing, McCoy, who hails from Moneyglass in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland, became the first jockey – and just the fourth equestrian, after David Broome in 1960, the Princess Royal in 1971 and her daughter, Zara Phillips, in 2006 – to win the award. McCoy, himself, had finished in third place in 2002, the year in which he Sir Gordon Richards’ long-standing record of 269 winners in a season, set in 1947, as had fellow jockey Lanfranco “Frankie” Detttori in 1996.
Despite polling over 40% of the public vote, after accepting the trophy from Cesc Fàbregas, McCoy, 36, said, “I am dazed,” before continuing, “This is an unbelievable feeling to be standing in front of so many amazing sports people. To win this award is very surreal. Without the help of so many people I wouldn’t be here.”
McCoy went on to reflect on the moment he won the Grand National on Don’t Push It, owned by John ‘J.P.’ Mcmanus and trained by Jonjo O’Neill, who were both in attendance at the ceremony. He said, “When I started off as a jockey I wanted to be champion jockey and having been lucky enough to be champion jockey for 15 years I wanted to break records.I just felt that winning the Grand National, as the biggest horse race in the world, I felt it was just an unbelievable day.” His victory at Aintree on April 10, 2010 reportedly cost bookmaker William Hill an estimated £10 million.