AP McCOY always wanted to be a jockey – and revealed a fortune teller told him that dream would come true.
The 50-year-old was a jockey for two decades, winning over 4,300 races, 20 Champion Jockey gongs, and two Cheltenham Gold Cups.
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He retired in 2015 and has since transitioned into life as a pundit and analyst, lending his horse-racing expertise to the other side of the track.
Appearing on the Late Late Show, he described this new stage of his career as “different”.
He added: “I grew up wanting to be a jockey. I didn’t grow up wanting to talk about horses on TV.
“I actually have four sisters and one brother and none of them have been on a horse in their lives.
“My younger brother was All-Ireland champion boxer a few times but none of them have been on a horse. All I ever wanted to be was a jockey.
“I’m not saying it was fate but there is actually a picture of me on a horse when I was four years old.”
If his desire to be a jockey wasn’t enough, his career may have been mapped out by a fortune teller.
He explained: “I did a thing for a journalist called Dominic King for my 50th birthday and he asked me did I believe in what was going to happen and did I always think it was going to happen.
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“I told him this story of when I went to Jim Bolger’s.
“I started at Jim Bolger’s this week in 1990 when I was 15 but I went to this strawberry fair in Wexford in I think about 1991 with a friend of mine.
“I went into this fortune teller – don’t ask me why I went to a fortune teller, I was 17 or 16 or whatever.
“She told me that she could see horses and she could see big stages next to me.
“For some reason, I told Dominic King about that last week and he wrote about it.
“Genuinely she would have had no idea because I was 16 or 17 at the time and it has 9:30 on a Friday evening.
“There was no chance she would have ever known I had anything to do with horses.”
In his capacity as a pundit, he has been working on ITV’s coverage of the Punchestown Festival.
This meant that, on Friday, he was watching as Willie Mullins became the winning most Irish trainer ever.
Ballyburne romped home to win the Champions Novice Hurdle for Mullins’ 4,378th victory.
The 13-length win today over Jetara sealed further history as he paid homage to the legendary Dermot Welds’ now former record.
 Mullins said: “Dermot pioneered going down to Australia and won the Belmont Stakes, an American Triple Crown race. He’s done superb things, so to be mentioned alongside him is fantastic.”
Just last week, the Irishman bridged a 70-year gap in becoming the first Irish trainer to be crowned champion trainer over jumps in Britain since Vincent O’Brien.
Willie Mullins won the accolade when El Fabiolo finished second in the Celebration Chase on the final day of the season at Sandown last Saturday.Â
