IN the wake of his victory in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award vote, 15 times champion jockey Tony McCoy revealed his next ambition. To win the Coral Welsh National.
Last Saturday (8th January), he did just that at Chepstow Racecourse and received a rapturous reception from an enthusiastic crowd of jump racing fans.
His mount Synchronised had been the ante-post favourite for the three-and-three-quarter-mile race for many weeks, but Maktu became the market leader just minutes before the off.
Held up for much of the race by Giles Cross on Maktu, McCoy's 5-1 chance came into the reckoning over the final few fences.
Ridden in typical fashion, he grabbed the lead over the final two obstacles to realise his rider's dream. Cross ran a great race to finish runner-up. The 2009 hero Dream Alliance was pulled up.
The champion jump jockey has now won all four 'nationals' – the Grand National at Aintree, the Scottish National, the Irish Grand National and now the Coral Welsh National.
Richard Holland, general manager of Chepstow Racecourse, said: "Coral Welsh National day was a fantastic occasion and the feature race provided yet another superb storyline.
"In 2009, the Welsh-bred Dream Alliance enjoyed a fairytale victory and this season we have witnessed the greatest ever jump jockey achieve his own ambition of completing the full set of 'national' races.
"We were also delighted to be able to raise lots of money for our official charity [the Noah's Ark Appeal of the Children's Hospital for Wales], which does so much good work for sick children in Wales."