It was great to see Richard Johnson ride his 3,000th National Hunt winner on Garde La Victoire at Ludlow on Tuesday. There was talk about the possibility of Johnson - the first new champ in 21 years - reaching A.P. McCoy’s remarkable 289 in a season, but that is still highly unlikely. Indeed, it is unlikely that anyone will do it at any time in the near future.

Some context - when McCoy rode his 289 winners, in the 2001/02 season, he had a 195 in the bag by the end of the calendar year. After racing had been frozen off in early January for a week, he rode five more winners between the resumption of racing on January 7th and January 11th. He rode his 200th winner of the season on Native Man at Huntingdon that day.