The genius champion rediscovers his hunger for success

On the form book, he had no chance – this was supposed to be round two of the clash of the generations between Long Run, the reigning champion, and Kauto Star, the old warrior and crowd favourite who had made a marvellous recovery from injury.

Except no one had told the never-say-die McCoy aboard last season’s dour Welsh National winner, a horse never considered as a genuine Gold Cup contender until he had crossed the line shortly before 3.30pm yesterday.

Even after the first half dozen fences, and before Kauto Star was pulled up to sympathetic cheers from his faithful followers, Synchronised was struggling to live with the pace.

It was the same as the race entered its final, lung-busting mile. McCoy, wearing the green and gold hoops of owner JP McManus, was still well-back after performing wonders to keep the nine-year-old in contention when lesser riders would have given up.

And then, as Long Run came under pressure and Tom Scudamore threatened to pull off a shock win on 50-1 outsider The Giant Bolster, who still led going over the last, McCoy pounced on a horse that he suggested beforehand had “as good as chance as any of finishing third”.

Some third – and some prediction. But then again racing should now expect the unexpected from a jockey who thrives on self-criticism.

As a piece of tactical mastery and horsemanship, it was far more accomplished than the jockey’s first Gold Cup win 15 years ago on the frontrunning Mr Mulligan.

While the great Kauto Star, twice champion, will almost certainly be retired and Nicky Henderson starts to analyse Long Run’s disappointing third-place finish – the one setback in an otherwise memorable week for a trainer who won a record seven contests – this one win could carry ‘the champ’ to new levels of greatness.

After two hideous falls in the past 10 weeks, there had been quiet mutterings about the unthinkable – McCoy retiring or being dethroned as champion next season.

His mood was certainly not helped by a Cheltenham week that saw him finish runner-up in four races before he finally broke his Festival duck on the 20-1 shot Alderwood in the County Hurdle just 75 minutes before Synchronised joined racing’s hall of fame.

After Albertas Run had so narrowly failed to land a third Ryanair Chase, McCoy was downcast – his face haggard from years of a starvation diet – and wondering where the next winner would come from. “I wouldn’t put any money on me, there’s a tip,” he told one racegoer.

Now the fire will be burning again as he inches towards his 4,000th career winner.

It was a first Gold Cup for McManus – one that sees Jonjo O’Neill join the elite club of horsemen to have landed Cheltenham’s greatest prize as rider and trainer – but the biggest winner was horse racing.

This has been another bitter-sweet week – the domination of Henderson’s stable that began on Tuesday, with Sprinter Sacre’s scintillating Arkle win, to the heartbreak of five horses paying the ultimate price with their lives.

Despite McCoy’s mastery, their passing must be examined closely by the racing authorities – in particular whether it was sensible to run the Cross Country race on firmish ground, even though connections of the ill-fated Garde Champetre and Scotsirish did not blame the course.

Coming so soon after last year’s traumatic Grand National, this sport cannot afford many more PR disasters – whether it be equine casualties or the Queen Mother Champion Chase’s farcical finish.

Racing’s authorities are quick to penalise jockeys when they err – but they appear reluctant to admonish their own when insufficient signs are placed on a fence to warn jockeys of a looming hazard.

That said, the controversy was becoming a fading memory when Big Buck’s recorded a historic fourth successive victory in the Ladbrokes World Hurdle on Thursday. The only one of the 2011 champions to successfully defend its title, the reception that the horse – and Ruby Walsh – received was spine-tingling. First there were ‘three cheers’ for Big Buck’s. And then the same for his jockey.

Big Buck’s has now won a record-equalling 16 consecutive races.

If this had been the Festival denouement, no one would have complained.

But McCoy had other ideas. Without a ride in the World Hurdle, he bantered with jockey Jamie Moore who said he would spend a week in Las Vegas after picking up a whip ban. McCoy said he would pay for the trip if he won the Gold Cup – and within a minute of crossing the line said he would honour the pledge.

And as the record-breaker is bestowed with plaudits, it is worth recalling his remarks in an interview with this newspaper last autumn. As he prepared to return from injury, his mood was downcast – there was a dearth of big-race rides.

He had looked at the horses open to him, Synchronised included, and offered this bleak appraisal: “Happy to be back, sad that I can’t see where a Grand National or Gold Cup is going to come from.” After one of the wins of his life, even McCoy can – and will – be forgiven one tiny misjudgment. He will be happy, briefly, but he will be the first to blame himself if he gets beaten this weekend.

That is why he is a genius; he is never satisfied.

As for racing, it will not be able to rely, for ever, on McCoy’s brilliance to promote the sport – or mask its shortcomings.