2010 Grand National: McCoy ends long wait

“The only thing I suppose Don’t Push It had was that he won a handicap chase at Aintree the season before and he was always a horse that had a bit of class.”

With the format of the Grand National having changed in recent years and more suited to those with that sprinkling of class, McCoy knew in Don’t Push It he had a horse that had the quality, if getting his tactics right at the business end.

He said: “I won a novice chase on Don’t Push It at Stratford in 2006 and I remember telling JP going to the November meeting at Cheltenham that year he was more a less a good thing and he got beat. I thought I was an OK judge, but looking back it was Denman that beat him three-quarters of a length.

“I think he had one little reach through the whole race, I don’t think there were any anxious moments, but no matter how well I was going I was always going to aim for the Elbow to be taking it up.

“There were four in line at the second-last – Don’t Push It, Hello Bud, Big Fella Thanks and Black Apalachi.

“I thought I was hanging on to enough that if I just keep niggling away and keep him with those other horses then I could suss out which was going best, then challenge.”

As it transpired it would be Black Apalachi that would stand in the way of giving McCoy the success he had long craved for – and trainer Jonjo O’Neill victory in a race that had escaped him as a jockey.

McCoy said: “The thing about Black Apalachi is that I knew he had been in the front end for a lot of it. I just thought the way the race had been run I would have been disappointed if I couldn’t have got past him. He was brave, but thankfully I managed to get past him.”

For McCoy – who received a knighthood in 2016 – his 2010 Grand National win was a triumph that delivered an overriding sense of relief more than anything else.

He said: “There was a lot of fulfilment I suppose, but maybe a lot more relief and that is because I hadn’t won a Grand National, whereas I had been lucky enough to win most of the other big races.

“The thing of coming back in is the whole excitement and jubilation of winning the Grand National – there is no other like it, walking back into the winner’s enclosure at Aintree, and that is what it is all about as you want to win all the big races.

“The Grand National is probably the most famous horse race in the world and I was glad that I won it. I would have been disappointed had I not won a Grand National, but did it make me a better jockey? No, it didn’t, but it’s nice to be able to say I won it.

“I later won Sports Personality of the Year and I got to play golf with Tiger Woods at JP’s tournament and apparently it was a draw (to see who played with who), so maybe it was a lucky year.”

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