Winning is a habit that Anthony Peter McCoy shows little sign of wanting to give up. Eighteen straight seasons of being champion jockey is testament to an unmatched drive to win as many races as possible. A personable and wry Northern Irishman who usually only bares his teeth when reminded of a losing race, McCoy is the epitome of the phrase "hardy perennial". The master of turning a lost cause into a winning position, his prime assets as a rider are his power and endurance and the ability to coax the best out of a horse that seems to have given up.

Year on year, and with no race too small, McCoy, tall for a rider at 5'10" and often riding well below his natural weight, travels the nation in search of winners, and passed 3,000 of them in February 2009 at Plumpton when riding Restless D'Artaix. The first had come aboard Legal Steps on Irish course Thurles in March 1992 when McCoy was just 17. On being granted a British racing licence in 1994 he set off at an amazing rate of winners, first winning the Conditional Jockey championship in 1994-5 with a record haul of 74 and then winning his first senior championship, setting on an unbroken run in which he has totally dominated the charts.

The 2001-2 season saw him win 289 races in a season, beating the legendary Gordon Richards' record for all types of racing. By then he had seen off Richard Dunwoody's record of all-time jumps racing wins and has left the rest behind in a wake that will surely not be emulated. Only Richard Johnson, who passed 2,000 in December 2009, is even within a thousand.

Hauls in the day-to-day slog of National Hunt have been decorated with big wins in the sport's feature races. McCoy became stable jockey for Martin Pipe, a trainer with a similar drive to win at all costs and together, they dominated the charts and won many a big prize. However, McCoy won his only Gold Cup on board Mr Mulligan in 1997, trained by Noel Chance and the Champion Chase with Henrietta Knight's Edredon Bleu in 2000, though he won the Champion Hurdle in 1997 on Pipe's Make A Stand. He also won the Champion Hurdle in 2006 on Colm Murphy's Brave Inca.

Since leaving the Pipe stable in 2004, he has been retained by famed gambler and businessman JP McManus who has the majority of his horses with trainer Jonjo O'Neill.

McManus also has horses with a range of other trainers and McCoy guided Binocular to a brilliant success in the 2010 Champion Hurdle for Nicky Henderson. That race was a prelude to arguably McCoy's greatest moment in the saddle when he partnered Don't Push It to victory in the Grand National. The great race had eluded McCoy for so long, but he came good at the 15th time of asking.

His Grand National win saw him recognised by the greater public and was named Sports Personality of the Year in 2010.

The success shows no sign of diminishing, as he completed the grand slam of Grand Nationals when winning the Welsh version aboard Synchronised at the start of 2011.

McCoy came into the 2012 Cheltenham Festival unsure of the quality of his mounts, but came away having picked up the blue riband as he and Synchronised proved a match made in heaven as they showed the greatest stamina to land the Gold Cup.

Career High A string of big-race wins have come his way but National glory on Don't Push It sealed his legacy in the sport.

Career Low He was denied a chance of Grand National victory when Clan Royal was taken out by a loose horse in 2005 but the low point was the death of Gloria Victis in the 2000 Gold Cup. A brilliant winner of the Racing Post Chase, the novice took his chance in the big race and took a fatal fall when leading at the penultimate fence.

Quotes "From day one I have had my heart set on riding as many winners as possible, and the longer it goes on, the more you want to achieve. It takes a lot of work and a lot of falls, but hopefully in years to come, someone will be able to tell I was alright as a jockey!" McCoy on passing 3,000 winners.

Trivia When attending a Dublin stag do with flat-jockey friends Shane Kelly and Jamie Spencer, AP turned street vigilante and apprehended two men trying to break into the group's car. And, while wife Chanelle was giving birth to daughter Eve, McCoy confessed that he was reading the Racing Post, only giving occasional encouragement to the process. He said: "I didn't think it was that hard. To be fair, my wife said it wasn't that hard either. She had an epidural, mind."