McCoy a local hero in Leicester
Tony McCoy showed once again why he is the preferred choice of the punters as he forced 1-2 favourite The Local home in the opener at Leicester.
The champion looked in trouble when market rival Give Me Love took up the running approaching the second-last fence of the gg.com Beginners’ Chase.
But having raced fairly keenly throughout under Liam Heard, Give Me Love failed to pull away and a mistake at the last allowed the winner to regain the initiative under McCoy’s persistent drive and get up for a head verdict.
“He got a lot of assistance from the saddle there,” said David Plunkett, assistant to winning trainer Charlie Egerton.
“He is a badly-handicapped horse and he has had to work very hard to beat a horse who has had a few goes without winning but the ground is very tacky, which isn’t ideal.
“Tony has got a very good strike-rate for us at the moment and we use him whenever we can get him. Hopefully he will be free to ride Darkness for us in the Royal & SunAlliance Chase in a fortnight's time but we won’t know until nearer the time if he is available.”
