McCoy stars with treble

Tony McCoy took advantage of the enforced absence of Mick Fitzgerald and title rival Richard Johnson to ride a treble at Kempton Park yesterday.

He replaced Fitzgerald on the Nicky Henderson-trained Ifni du Luc in the day’s most valuable contest, the Are You Sharp Enough? Betfair Chase.

The mare powered away from her rivals under champion jockey Tony McCoy, beating Sir Toby by an easy four lengths.

Said Henderson: “She has just had a lot of little problems this season, but there’s nothing wrong with her and her legs are fine.

“It might just be a bit difficult to get some black type for her, but I suppose that would be what Sir Eric (Parker, Ifni de Luc’s owner and the president of the Racehorse Owners’ Association) would like.

Henderson arrived at the track fresh from having seen five of his string work out at Newbury racecourse in the morning, where he was joined by stable jockey Fitzgerald, who will ride out on Tuesday as he completes his preparations to return from injury.

“Hopefully, Mick can be back by the weekend,” Henderson said. “He will have X-rays on Thursday and we will know more then, but we will have quite a big team at Sandown so it would be good to have him back by then.

“To some extent he will pick and choose his rides but he – as much as anyone else – knows that if you can’t ride a novice chaser then you can’t think about riding in championship races at Cheltenham.

“Everything went well. It was just a good opportunity to give an away day to a few horses who hadn’t had a race for a while.”

McCoy also struck for Philip Hobbs with a powerful front-running ride on Limerick Leader in the three-mile novice hurdle.

“AP has been a very lucky jockey for these owners,” said Hobbs, who had also earlier struck with Lacdoudal in the opener under Warren Marston.

“That is 12 winners from 14 rides, they tell me. This horse will make a lovely novice chaser in time.”

Limerick Leader’s success brought up a seasonal century for Hobbs, who said: “I always try never to get complacent and getting 100 winners is one of our most important aims at the start of each season.”

McCoy’s first winner had come as result of a fine piece of tactical riding.

Riding 13-8 chance Mondial Jack, he refused to let the odds-on favourite, confirmed front-runner Nonantais, get his own way in the lead for the two-and-a-half-mile Betfair Novices’ Chase.

That rival capsized at the second-last fence when well beaten and Mondial Jack was left to coast home by 27 lengths from Baton Charge, with Nonantais remounted to finish third and last of the five starters.

Modest as ever, McCoy played down his role in the victory.

“You could see that the other horse soon wasn’t travelling, and after that all he had to do was jump round,” he said.