Racing: Changing of the guard reflects a changing of the times

Now for the record: McCoy, poised to break the barrier of most wins in a season, has yet to reach final frontier

In the next few days Tony McCoy is set to become the winningmost jockey in a season under any code in British racing history. He has been that over jumps since 1998, when he left Peter Scudamore's old mark of 221 far behind with his 253, a figure which he surpassed earlier this month. This week he will a;most certainly consign Sir Gordon Richards' Flat record of 269, set in 1947, to the history books.

Because of the differences in the two branches of the sport and the much greater social and technological changes in the past 55 years, the new record will be more a statistical curiosity than a measure of comparable achievement. But it will be an extraordinary feat nonetheless.

"It's not really possible to compare the two directly," Scudamore said. "I would think it's easier on the Flat. It's certainly a darn sight safer; it's injury that will stop a jump jockey. But then perhaps Flat racing is more competitive. You can argue it both ways."

It took Richards a span of 240 days to reach his total, compiled during a then-conventional nine-month season from 835 rides, a strike rate of 32 per cent. It is now 320 days since McCoy rode his first winner on 1 May last year, the start of a 12-month campaign in which he has had 896 mounts, currently a 29 per cent success rate. To put things in perspective, the world record for a jockey is Kent Desormeaux's 598 victories from 2,312 rides in the USA in 1989.

Really, it has only been the moving of the goalposts to give a year-round season that has enabled McCoy to reach the target.

That, and the tunnel vision common to him and Richards. McCoy, three times, and Scudamore are the only men to have reached two hundred winners over jumps, whereas double centurions are not uncommon on the Flat: Fred Archer (eight times); Tommy Loates; Richards (12); Pat Eddery; Michael Roberts; Jason Weaver; Frankie Dettori (twice); Kieren Fallon (three times). With 34 days left of the current jump season, the triple century would not be out of the question for McCoy.

On the Flat Frankie Dettori has come closest to Richards's tally, when he took the 1994 title with 233 winners from a record 1,317 rides. He started at Lingfield on 1 January and had 50 on the board before the start of the turf campaign in March. But the modern top Flat jockeys tend not to include the winter all-weather season in the programmes.

Jockey records do not seem to fall easily. Before Richards beat it with 259 in 1933, the seasonal numerical record was held by the giant of the 19th century, Fred Archer, who rode 246 winners in 1885. Each man had his own pluses and minuses: Archer was dominant in his era in terms of technique, would invariably get the best position at the start in the days when there was no draw, was inordinately strong, often unduly so, in a finish, but had to undergo the fierce regime of wasting that eventually led to his death.

Richards rode in a golden age of jockeyship but had the blessed advantage of being able to ride comfortably at eight stone without recourse to a sauna at any time in his career. In his 18-year career Archer won 2,748 of his 8,084 races. Richards retired with 4,780 winners, but they came from 31,843 mounts over 33 years.

Jockeys today enjoy benefits unknown to Richards. In 1947, there were no evening fixtures, no all-weather racing, no helicoptering between afternoon meetings and Britain's first motorway, the M1, was still 12 years in the future.

Scudamore, perceived as intense in his day as McCoy is now, lowered Jonjo O'Neill's old jump record of 149 in his season of seasons. "If anyone had offered me 150 at the start I would have taken their hand off," he said. "But then once I passed Jonjo the pressure was immediately on for the first 200 winners. The trouble with records and statistics is that there's always one on the horizon and rather than being able to enjoy the one you hold, there is disappointment if you don't get to the next one.

"Targets and expectations can be unrealistic but that pressure of expectancy becomes very difficult to cope with. Once people begin to say that you are the greatest it almost takes you out of being human. So when things go wrong the reaction, your own and other people's, is exaggerated. I do think that Tony is the best there has ever been over jumps and I have huge admiration for him. But with his situation comes all the baggage, all that business of living in a glass bowl."

Scudamore's words have particular relevance this past week, during which time McCoy's anguish over the death of potentially brilliant hurdler Valiramix has been plain for all to see. He has been haunted not, as has been suggested in some circles, because he kept getting beaten at the Festival, but because it may have been his split-second's misjudgement about the huge grey's abnormally long, onward-bound stride that caused the horse to clip heels and fall.

For a perfectionist, that is difficult to bear and McCoy would probably happily exchange all the records he holds for a re-run of the Champion Hurdle.