Newton Abbot pays tribute to McCoy Tony McCoy described it as a "huge honour" after unveiling a bronze bust of himself at Newton Abbot. The perennial champion jockey was due to be in action at the Devon circuit, but has taken a few days off to recover from a horror fall at Worcester on Thursday. However, McCoy was still on hand to reveal the cast in front of a large crowd, which included former champion trainer Martin Pipe and his son David, as well as Jonjo O'Neill. It will be placed in the window of the weighing room, and commemorates the fact that McCoy rode more winners at Newton Abbot than any other racecourse in his landmark 4,000 career victories, achieved late last year. "It's a huge honour, I didn't think anyone would put a statue of me anywhere. It's a very good likeness," said McCoy. "It's always been a very well-run track, and I think I rode my first chase winner here for Bob Buckler. "It's one of the reasons I made sure I came - a lot of other tracks could learn from Newton Abbot. "It's pretty much self-funded and to get the prize-money and the races they've got on today is a credit to them and they deserve it." Newton Abbot's managing director Pat Masterson said: "It's in honour of a legend, really, and we're so pleased he's made such an effort to come down. "Of his 4,000, he rode more winners here (264) than any other racecourse and we wanted that to be remembered forever." McCoy hopes to be back in the saddle early next week following his unshipping from the Rebecca Curtis-trained Keep Presenting at the first flight of the Injured Jockeys Fund 50th Anniversary Maiden Hurdle at Worcester. "I'm still a bit sore, but hopefully I'll be better in the next day or so, and I'll be back riding soon. Hopefully it will be Monday or Tuesday," he said. With almost every record in the book already broken, a next possible objective for McCoy could be to try and ride an incredible 300 winners in a season. He is already on 146 for the campaign. Asked about achieving the feat, McCoy said: "It's very hard, in other words it means there can be only 65 days where you don't ride a winner, and that's a lot. "Nothing's impossible, I have ridden 300 in a calendar year from January 1 to January 1, so we'll see."
