'AP and I were the same – all we wanted was to ride a winner'

Having spent 20 years waiting for AP McCoy to join the Foreign Legion or be run over by a passing bus, Richard Johnson now has the field to himself.

But there is no "master of all he surveys" about the dual champion. As befits a man born of the land he is grounded beyond belief – just one of the qualities that make him so popular both in and out of the weighing room.

Recalling that first year when McCoy was at last no longer in his orbit, he says: "I felt if I was ever going to be champion it had to happen then or it never would.