Tireless, brilliant and humble - the Flat's new champion jockey
To the many plaudits that Sir Anthony McCoy can claim for his career, on Saturday he might jokingly add a new one: that his hold of the jump championship was so unshakeable Jim Crowley had to became a Flat jockey to win a title of his own.
Crowley, who will be crowned on Champions Day, might never have won a championship if he hadn't switched codes in 2006 - yet moving to the Flat was anything but an easy option and Saturday's long-awaited trophy has come about because of a tireless obsession with riding winners.
His championship is the product of a ferocious work ethic that drove him to criss-cross the country like the National Express, taking 477 rides from July to September, more than 70 ahead of the weighing room's toughest grafter Luke Morris and almost 100 in front of his title rival and reigning champion Silvestre de Sousa. Forget Stakhanovite, this was McCoyian.
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