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McCoy to ride Kauto Star in King George

Tony McCoy was named Sports Personality of the Year © PA Photos

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Tony McCoy will ride Kauto Star in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day after Noel Fehily ruled himself out on account of a wrist injury.

Fehily only recently returned to the saddle following a wrist injury, but he aggravated the problem this week and is likely to require an operation.

Trainer Paul Nicholls made a move to enlist the services of McCoy and the 15-time champion jockey has switched from Albertas Run to the four-time winner of the race.

"Noel Fehily will not be riding Kauto Star," Paul Nicholls wrote in his column on Betfair. "He has stood himself down as he believes he needs an operation and surgery, and could be out for six to eight weeks."

A devastated Fehily said: "It's the wrist injury I had earlier. It had been good for my comeback and everything was great, but I had a couple of rides on Tuesday and I've tweaked it again somehow.

"It's just flared up again and I haven't got enough time to get it right. I need to get it looked at again. It's not good."

McCoy is thrilled to have been given the chance to ride Kauto Star. McCoy told Radio Five: "It's every jockey's dream to ride a horse like Kauto Star - what he has achieved, winning four King Georges and two Gold Cups and many other races as well, you can't not but look forward to riding him.

"He's a fantastic horse, he stays well and if he puts up anything close to his King George performances beforehand he'll win it."

McCoy heaped praise on Trevor Hemmings and Jonjo O'Neill, owner and trainer of Albertas Run respectively, for allowing him to take the ride.

He added: "Trevor Hemmings, who owns Albertas Run, was very kind to give me the opportunity to ride Kauto Star instead of Albertas Run, so thanks to Trevor for that.

"I rang Jonjo and I rang Trevor Hemmings myself. I wasn't being very loyal - I wanted to ride another horse but he was very understanding and luckily for me that was the case."

Hopes are rising that Kempton will beat the cold snap and be able to put on the big meeting as planned.

"We've had a good thaw here," clerk of the course Barney Clifford said. "There's still a couple of centimetres of snow on the track, but you can see the black covers poking through in areas which is encouraging. We never got above 2C over the last 36 hours so it's encouraging to see seven centimetres of snow disappear.

"We've still got a way to go. We've got a couple of minus figures forecast the next couple of nights, so we'll monitor the situation on a daily basis.

"One would have to be optimistic. It's a 50-50 call, but we'll do everything in our power to try to get it on.

"We'll see what the forecast says. It has been quite volatile over the last three weeks or so and we'll just see what it brings."

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