Racing: Live The Dream brightens bruising day for McCoy

It is a measure of their huge success that Tony McCoy and Pat Eddery were considered to have failed yesterday. The jumps jockey's ruin was to manage just a single success at Cheltenham, a victory which means he finished 2002 with the small matter of 209 winners to his name for the season. His Flat counterpart's attempt to ride 100 winners in a season for the 28th time in 29 seasons ended on the cliff edge at Wolverhampton when Eddery's six rides yielded not a single winner to leave him marooned on 99.

Eddery, who celebrates his 51st birthday before the Flat turf season starts in March, nevertheless has Sir Gordon Richards's all-time record of 4,870 winners in Britain still in his sights. "It would be really something to beat it, there is still a long way to go, but when you get as close as this I will keep trying as long as I stay fit and healthy and keep getting decent horses to ride," he said.

"I am going skiing with the family at the weekend – a bit of snow in the face will make a change from the sand on the all-weather. And before we know we will be back at Doncaster for the start of the Turf season again in the spring – and a century will be the first target, that's for sure."

McCoy will never ever post those sort of numbers, yet he continues to trudge on into the horizon as the most successful jumps jockey of all time. He will not have gone home satisfied from Prestbury Park, Live The Dream's handicap hurdle win the only fruit of his labour.

More pertinent in his mind will have been the demise of Barryscourt Lad, who trotted around unhindered in the opener before throwing himself to the floor at the final obstacle.

Then it was the turn of the 8-13 favourite Ad Hoc, who could finish only a well-beaten third behind Stromness in the Spa Hurdle. By this time McCoy would have forgotten that this was the season to be jolly.

Martin Pipe's Horus did little to alleviate the mood, as his weight proved far too onerous to cope with the talents of Ferdy Murphy's Historg. This was a first true Cheltenham winner for Davy Russell, Aidan Maguire's successor as the first jockey at the court of Murphy. "That's my first proper winner here," Russell said, "but I did win a cross-country race on The Quads.

"This horse loves soft ground and travelled better than he normally does out there today."

It will be even more testing at Prestbury Park today, even if the course manages to survive a 7.30am inspection. Whatever conditions are thrown up will not deter Blowing Wind, who was a survivor two years ago of the most absurd Grand National of the modern age.

Pipe's gelding, a contestant in today's most valuable race, the Unicoin New Homes Chase, has now been third twice in the National, yet he is much more than a one-track pony. Indeed, Cheltenham is more his course. Blowing Wind won the Mildmay of Flete Chase at the Festival last year and the County Hurdle in 1998. McCoy's mount will go close this afternoon, but will struggle to cope with Ballinclay King (next best 2.50), who was third behind Horus last time and will delight in the prevailing conditions.

McCoy will be getting crosser and crosser by the time Westender, who was second to Like-A-Butterfly in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at the Festival, struggles in the glutinous going in the handicap hurdle. This ground should finally see the arrival of the hitherto disappointing SUD BLEU (nap 3.20), who now competes off a most persuasive weight. In the finale, watch for Duchamp, Andrew Balding's first runner after taking over the licence at Kingsclere from his father, Ian.