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A.P. McCoy with Donn McClean

Tony ‘AP’ McCoy is the greatest and most successful jump-jockey of all time. He has collected a record sixteen consecutive jump jockey titles to date, and since 1992 he has ridden over 3,000 winners, saying ‘I never stop dreaming of the day I’ll reach 4,000.’ In 2002, he beat Sir Gordon Richards’ record of 269 winners in a season by riding 289. In April 2010 AP achieved his lifelong ambition when he won the Grand National at Aintree on Don’t Push It. It was his fifteenth attempt to win the race, a victory that captured the public’s imagination and irradiated a glittering career in which he had already won all there was to win. It was the final missing piece in the racing jigsaw for a champion jockey who had already had famous victories in the King George VI Chase, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup.

This powerfully honest autobiography looks at life at the very top in National Hunt racing. These are the memoirs of a true champion, an icon of sport, whose astonishing achievements over the past sixteen years are unlikely to be surpassed. It is a great story of courage and modesty, pain and professional setbacks, strong family values and sporting triumphs, the good guy coming first – and staying there.

A.P. McCoy – My Autobiography was shortlisted for the following awards:

* 2011 Irish Sports Book of the Year – Bord Gais Irish Book Awards
* 2011 William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year

Reviews of A.P. McCoy – My Autobiography

“It deals rewardingly with the man rather than with the career. It helps, of course, that Donn McClean is a superlative writer. This book reads as though it has been crafted for craft’s sake rather than dashed together in the face of a Christmas deadline. McClean finesses the fracture between subject and ghostwriter and brings McCoy’s noted wry humour to work upon areas obviously contributed by writer not rider. Sure, this is no deathless page-turner because we know what happens in the end (McCoy conquers the world, sorry for the spoiler) but the object of the exercise is illustration and in this respect McClean is something of an artist.”
Steve Dennis, The Racing Post, 6th December 2011

“Tony McCoy could tell you about such books – he’d already published two of the genre before he sat down with Donn McClean to write AP McCoy – My Autobiography. The only reason he could justify having a third go at it would be if he had something to say about himself that he hadn’t said before. Thankfully, this is indeed the case. He takes his time in getting there, but by the end of this excellent book we do have some idea of what it is that drives McCoy, of where the madness comes from.”
Malachy Clerkin, The Irish Times, 17th December 2011

“It makes for a complete portrait of one of the most remarkable sportsmen of recent decades. It is a benefit, too, that Donn McClean, the jockey’s collaborator, is one of Ireland’s finest racing writers and at no point in nearly 350 pages does this feel like just a long list of winners. The key moments of McCoy’s career are explored in detail, of course, including the recent, cherished victory in the 2010 Grand National and the recognition as BBC Sports Personality of the Year that followed. What emerges above all, though, is a reassuring sense that this driven man is now learning to pause and appreciate a success before setting off to chase the next one.”
Greg Wood, The Guardian, 10th December 2011

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