An Irishman's Diary

CONSIDERING its fame, "the real McCoy" is a phrase of curiously obscure origin. Brewers Dictionaryand that great scholar of slang Eric Partridge both believe it started in Scotland as "the real Mackay", after the whisky of that name, and that by the 1880s, it was being applied there to "whisky, men, and things of the highest quality" generally.

Even this is not beyond dispute, however. Yes, there is a record of the distillers using the slogan “the real Mackay” in 1856, shortly before the phrase first appeared in any dictionary. But at least one etymologist has suggested a much older origin, going back to a 17th-century split in the Mackay clan, the northern branch of which was led by a Lord Reay, or as he styled himself: “The Reay Mackay”.

Either way, the phrase crossed the Atlantic at some stage: probably with the whisky. And in the process it acquired the Irish-American spelling now standard everywhere except Scotland. Central to this development was a story about a boxer – a US welterweight champion around 1900 – known as Kid McCoy.

H.L. Mencken, among others, records the tale that McCoy was once challenged to a fight by a drunk who refused to believe he was the famous pugilist. The latter flashed his identity card in the form of a haymaker. Whereupon the drunk, picking himself up off the floor, agreed this was indeed “the real McCoy”, so launching or re-launching the phrase on the US market.

Since then, anyone of that surname who achieves any distinction has either claimed the title or had it applied to him. The list includes a famous American cattle baron, a prohibition-era rum smuggler, and the Canadian inventor of a much copied engine-lubricating machine. Bizarrely, entries extend even to an island off China, whose notoriety as a source for high-grade heroin once spawned a phrase in the US underworld: “the real Macao”.

I MENTION all of this only by away of a roundabout tribute to the Antrim-born jockey who earlier this week rode the 3,000th winner of his record-breaking career. Tony McCoy’s name doesn’t mean much in the US, where most of the pretenders now emanate. But he owns the franchise in these parts and, for this generation at least, he is the Real McCoy. Everyone else is an impostor.

He achieved his latest milestone during a fairly typical afternoon’s work – typical in that, shortly before his triumph, and in similar fashion to the drunk who challenged his namesake, he had to pick himself off the floor. Having reached the 2,999 mark earlier in the day, he rode the favourite in the 3.45 in Plumpton and was eight lengths clear with only the last hurdle to jump.

Unfortunately, at that point, either the jockey or the weight of history proved too much for the horse, which crumpled on landing and dumped its pilot. No matter. There was nothing broken, unlike previous occasions when McCoy has fractured wrists, arms, legs, ankles, and (this time last year) a couple of vertebrae. And his mount in the next race did not fluff its lines.

Jump jockeys like McCoy are among Ireland’s greatest – and least acclaimed – sporting heroes. Their dominance in Britain will probably be demonstrated yet again at next month’s Cheltenham Festival, the sport’s European championships. But it may be because their success as a collective is more or less inevitable – unlike, say, Robbie Keane’s goals for whoever he’s playing for this month – that we don’t get as excited about it as we should.

Four-legged Irish winners at Cheltenham look likely to be in shorter supply for the foreseeable future than during the boom, when we could count on at least half-a-dozen “bankers”, as well as the usual few dark horses whose chances were hitherto known only to the trainer’s local village in Carlow or west Cork. Indeed, the term “Irish banker” may not be used at all next month, out of respect to the horses.

But our jockeys remain hard currency, even in a recession; and if someone other than McCoy, or Ruby Walsh, or Barry Geraghty, or another compatriot wins the riders’ championship there it will be a surprise.

Apart from their skill and courage, the thing that strikes me most about jump jockeys is how articulate they are. For people who fall on their heads a lot, they tend to be very lucid talkers, fluent in at least two languages (English and the one horsey people talk to each other). Maybe it’s the gregarious nature of their sport that makes them so – though God knows that doesn’t seem to work for professional soccer players.

Having guts, brilliance, and a fluent interview style in common, Ireland’s current top two jockeys nevertheless present a dramatic contrast. Ruby Walsh has a deceptively quiet riding style, compared with McCoy’s more dynamic approach. And of course, whereas the latter is known to race-goers almost exclusively by his second name, the former is known almost exclusively by his first.

This is not, probably, because Walsh is held in greater public affection. It’s just that certain forenames (like “Bertie”) have a novelty appeal; and Ruby – at least when applied to a man – is one of them. Whereas even if “Tony” were short for “Antoinette”, I doubt the full version would ever have taken off as a popular description of the Antrim jockey. He was “McCoy” from the start; and 3,000 wins later, he could hardly be anything else.