Cheltenham 2002: McCoy keeps a level head to ride the highs and lows

There is in Tony McCoy's house, which is Cotswolds in design if not quite in location, a trophy shop which he uses as a lounge. Here in the Oxfordshire village of Kingston Lisle, visitors must tread carefully on their way to the imperial vermillion sofa so as not to send plaques rolling, crystal smashing or cause a domino effect among the Terracotta Army of matching rider statuettes the champion jockey has amassed on one table.

McCoy himself is on a rare day off and is dressed in a fleece top, jogging pants and socks. Even though his body is shrouded it remains clear he is ill-designed to be a National Hunt jockey. At around 5ft 11in, McCoy does not have the malleable frame which is thought necessary for the regular collisions with Mother Earth that come with his trade. You also notice the huge hands, the nails of which have been keeping his teeth busy.

During this build-up to the Festival, McCoy has just watched his videoed self on a television of such dimensions that Pearl & Dean should have sponsored the adverts. Smiling, he cannot understand why, on screen, he looked so miserable.

For in racing's circus, Frankie Dettori is recognised as the one throwing buckets of glitter while McCoy is the doleful figure at the back of the troupe with a tear on his cheek. When the Ulsterman is at the racecourse, effusive joy is a well-guarded prisoner inside his body. "I watched the video of me winning on Copeland in the Tote Gold Trophy at Newbury and I could not believe there wasn't a smile on my face when I pulled up," he says. "I couldn't understand it because I was really happy at that moment. I enjoyed that so much, but there was no expression on my face. Not even a hint of a smile. Sometimes I worry that I don't sit back and appreciate all this enough. I know I'm very lucky to ride the horses I do. I don't want to be 35 and finishing and think I rode all those winners at Cheltenham and elsewhere and forgot to enjoy it along the way. I love riding and I should enjoy it more."

There is in McCoy, though, a streak of pessimism. He talks of "not getting beat" rather than winning, of the hell that would be visited on him if he does not post any success at Prestbury Park's festival of the National Hunt sport. "The week leading up to Cheltenham I think about it a lot," he says. "I don't get nervous, but I worry about walking away on the Thursday evening without a winner."

Tony McCoy has already ridden 12 winners at the Festival. "Your first winner at Cheltenham [Kibreet in the 1996 Grand Annual] is great and of course you remember a Gold Cup and Mr Mulligan [1997], but every winner at Cheltenham is fantastic," he says. "It's hard to put one ahead of another." There is less debate, however, over McCoy's worst Festival moment. As the six-year-old Gloria Victis approached the second last of the millennium Gold Cup, he had not only a prospective Blue Riband in front of him but possibly hegemony as Europe's premier jumping horse. Several strides, and a crumpling fall, later he was dead.

"I didn't really cope well that day," McCoy admits. "I went into the ambulance room and just cried. Norman Williamson came in and tried to help, but it was no good. I just wanted to go away. It was just the most terrible feeling, perhaps the only time in my life when I didn't want to go out and ride afterwards.

"I decided to give it a go, but I just ended up falling off [Carandrew in the Grand Annual]. I knew then I shouldn't have been there.

"Gloria Victis was a brilliant horse, but more than that a horse who wanted to do everything for you. Very few people knew how good he was and he was only going to get better. I've never ridden a horse with the zest he had. He just wanted to be good."

Anthony Peter McCoy's career seems to be a historical hall of mirrors. Was it really as recently as 17 March, 1994 – the same day as Jodami and Mark Dwyer were winning the Gold Cup – that he had his first ride over hurdles at Leopardstown? By that summer McCoy was in England, and when Chickabiddy won at Exeter in September she put her young jockey on an express train which has since ignored every red signal. McCoy was conditional champion that first year with 74 winners. Since then he has accumulated six straight senior championships and a seventh is inevitable. "It's all happened quickly for me," he says. "It's never been gradual. I'm only 27 and a lot of people only started to get to be champion jockey at that age. I go into each season as if it's my first and pretend I'm starting again and going on for another six or seven years."

It is a creditable achievement of Tony McCoy that his head does not inflate in equal measure to his celebrity. The summit trickle of praise at the beginning of his career has swollen into a downstream deluge as he closes in on both Gordon Richards' record for a calendar year and Richard Dunwoody's career total. McCoy hears the hosannas but is not persuaded by them. "I'm flattered that people think I'm good at my job, but I don't believe anything that I read and half of what I hear about myself," he says. "It doesn't matter how good you are, it could all end tomorrow and I've always thought I was only as good as my last winner. I might ride five winners on Monday, but if there are none on Tuesday, you're no good by Wednesday. I wouldn't believe it for a moment if someone said I was the best jockey there had ever been. I wouldn't even attempt to believe that. It wouldn't cross my mind. What a load of crap."

There are plenty of observers who ascribe McCoy's domination simply to his association with Martin Pipe. Indeed, the jockey himself is among them. Others beat him with the rod that he has used his own whip too much to achieve success. Again, McCoy does not roll his sleeves up at this suggestion.

"A lot of the time, as my colleagues quickly and rightly point out [a smile], I win because I'm on the best horse," he says. "The lads think that as I ride for Martin Pipe that entitles me to be champion jockey. That I should ride more winners and they don't worry about it. I see their point. I wouldn't like to be riding against someone who was Martin Pipe's jockey.

"There was a time when people thought I was quite hard on horses and, looking back, I would agree with them. That was part of wanting to win so much, doing anything to win. I'll still do anything to win, but I think my understanding of a horse has got better. I gel with them a lot better. Before, I used to force it out of them a lot. I do believe that I now ride every horse the way it should be ridden. Not the same way as the last one just because it won. Most races are won in the country, not from the second last, but all the way round by nicking and saving a little bit. It's all about the knowledge. I'm better now at reading how much a horse can give and how to get it out of him."

This nouveau McCoy – the one minus club and loincloth – is good news for those under his saddle. "Before I used to depend a lot on my strength and I thought I could get away with a mistake because I would be strong enough to get the horse home," he says. "Now I'd rather not make a mistake. I'd rather not have to be strong. I'd rather get it right in the first place and make it as easy on the horse as possible."

When he looks through his personal album, there is a figure a few pages back which McCoy hardly recognises, let alone admires. "There was a stage there two or three years ago when I couldn't be bothered to talk to some people," he says. "I'd be coming out of races and if anyone said anything I'd just keep walking. Now I realise that I should feel privileged that people want to stop and talk to me.

"Those people, the punters, the every-day people, are the ones that keep the whole thing going and as long as they're not racking your head totally I think they deserve a minute or two of your time. It was the same with owners. I used to have the attitude that either they wanted me or they didn't. That I didn't have to be nice to them. Now I think I'm much more approachable and happy to give them a chance. I can see they pay the bills and not cut them off after I've ridden the horse.

"It's probably part of growing up. You learn a lot as you go along through life and if you don't learn how to get on with people better you don't get better yourself as a human being. You have to be able to sit back and look at yourself. I think my riding can still improve and my way with owners, trainers, people is getting better."

Certainly his way with journalists is already there. As you go to leave, McCoy leads you past the office inhabited by his deceptively fragile personal assistant, Gee Armytage, the former jockey, and through to the back porch. He puts on his shoes and tends the gate. Then, as you drive out, and you get increasingly used to this after time spent in the private company of Tony McCoy, he smiles.

McCoy at The Festival: 12 winners. Biggest successes: Gold Cup: 1997 Mr Mulligan. Champion Hurdle: 1997 Make a Stand. Queen Mother Champion Chase: 2000 Edredon Bleu