Whenever he’s doing anything competitive he takes on a slightly different persona

“Whenever he’s doing anything competitive, he takes on a slightly different persona. He still executes and expects to do so for three more years to come. And when it is all over, he will still not be a man with whom to have a game of social tennis with barley water at the change round.”He couldn’t bear to lose at anything, and gets himself in a right state at the thought of it,” Osborne says. He is hired on a contract killer’s basis to do a job clinically and efficiently.

“He would never admit it, but he’s had a mental battle with himself to reconcile the fact that he is no longer champion jockey. He’s given himself a talking-to so he could come to terms with the fact that people say things about McCoy which they never said about him.”There remains though something of the grim reaper about Richard Dunwoody. He is ruthless on the plains out there, and when he is wronged he does not store his frustration. Just recently he came to blows with Mick Fitzgerald in the weighing-room. The Belfast-born man may no longer be the leading figure in the pride, but he remains a character with whom few mess.”He’s slightly mellower now, but maybe that’s his way of coping with the fact that he’s not riding as many winners as McCoy and [Richard] Johnson,” Jamie Osborne, a weighing-room colleague, says. There are some sportsmen who are just ignorant pigs, but he is genuinely a nice fellow.”There are some of Dunwoody’s colleagues who may not recognise this description. Their type of bravery astounds me.”Richard is very, very competitive in what he does, but he’s a different person when you get him away from all that.

He remembers the sacrifices it took to get there and that is not a land he wants to revisit. “Richard’s greatest asset is his determination,” Scudamore says. “I always thought Francome was extremely brave, but calculated at the same time, weighing up the risks Dunwoody and McCoy are different They don’t believe they can get hurt. In several days’ time he will pass Peter Scudamore’s career record of 1,677 winners Then he will kick on again. “Cheltenham is the first priority,” he said at the beginning of the week. “Then it’s the Gold Cup, Scu’s record and after that we’ll set other sights.”Scu will happily wave Dunwoody by. He still rides more than most jockeys and is active in Ireland most weekends.

A lot of perspiration has come sprinkling out of that body down the years as he has punished himself in saunas.Dunwoody has taken risks with injuries and always played devilishly hard on the racecourse. Trying to go up his inside is akin to swimming with the crocodiles.The old boy is, however, not as active as he used to be, though to suggest he is winding down greatly is nonsense. And that includes his own.
At the age of 35, when some men are putting on chunky jumpers and hanging up their tankards behind the local bar, Dunwoody continues his yomp through self-denial. The Ulsterman has ridden in about 10,000 races, many times at weights unnatural for his frame. It is probably true that Dunwoody would gallop over a grandmother if she stood between him and the finishing line. Thomas Richard Dunwoody MBE has been talented for a long time now, but more than that he has maintained a frightening level of intensity throughout his career. The trainer believes Florida Pearl to be good enough and will wait until this afternoon’s Gold Cup before he discovers whether his horse also has the requisite courage and grit in his armoury This is not a conundrum he faces with his jockey.

A couple of lunges did nothing to improve things personally but today is another story.With two fancies in mind it may be sensible to cancel news delivery and wise up to the fact that there is more misinformation current on the process of finding winners than on any other topic in sport.. WILLIE MULLINS knows the Cheltenham Festival and knows it needs more than sheer ability to conquer in the fiercest of arenas. If you think it isn’t a sport, you should think again.Watching Istabraq annihilate the field to become Ireland’s first since Monksfield to win two successive Champion Hurdles you had a clear sense of sporting greatness. “Like all terrific athletes he’s got class and determination,” somebody said. “You get goose-bumps watching him.”From the sound of it this view was shared by many in the audience, their cheers carrying far over the rolling countryside.Even at long range, yesterday’s scene had all the ingredients of a memorable sporting occasion. A gathering united in a lovely landscape by the horse.People who have never risked money on a horse – and lost, and cursed, and gone back to the boards to bet the next race – will never understand what it is that makes racing so fascinating, so thrilling.If you think it’s purely about trying to find a winner, you are wrong. “How many more times do you have to be told about the perils of idle gossip.”Never mind, when a punter has nothing to complain about except the imagined dishonesty of jockeys, the incompetence of trainers and the stewards’ indifference to fouls, he may just as well quit the game cold and stay at home and watch the history channel.If improvements at Cheltenham have left punters with less cause for complaint about the absence of creature comforts, the impression remains that they are never truly happy unless they are miserable – shiny in the seat and tissue-thin in the sole, unable to find a step to stand on or a winner to back, stony broke and sinking hopelessly deeper into debt.One of Cheltenham’s many delights is to mix with a lot of people who are expert and hospitable and easygoing with their knowledge, and impossible to grade socially.