Tony McCoy

Racing is a great sport, but we need people to come along and see that for themselves. Maybe they're not used to going racing or haven't been before, but I think people get a taste for it; they do come back.

From a public perspective, the Grand National is the biggest race of all, and not to have won it yet is definitely a failure. But there's been a lot of jockeys every bit as good and better than me that haven't won it - John Francome, Peter Scudamore, Jonjo O'Neill, Charlie Swan, to name a few.

Most days, I have a slice of toast, then lie in a hot bath for an hour to get up a sweat. I have a sauna at the racecourse and then go and ride. On the way home, I might stop at a service station and have a bar of chocolate and a Diet Coke. And that's it, basically.

When I was a kid, if someone had asked who I'd meet if it could be anyone in the world, it would've been Liam Brady.

Horses are like people - they have different personalities. They can be nice, friendly and hard-working, or awkward, difficult and lazy. If horses were people, some would be on the dole, and others would be entrepreneurs.

I get butterflies before going out to ride every day, but they disappear as soon as I am on a horse, and I think that is the same for most jockeys. Then it is just down to you and the horse, and there is a certain freedom in that.

Racing may be a minority sport, but I wouldn't swap it for all the money in the world.

It always hurts a bit to pick the 'wrong one' in a race as big as the Champion Hurdle, and then, to make matters worse, you go and get beat by the horse you rejected.

In my opinion, the power of the mind in sport is vital. If you can overpower those physical risks mentally, you can get your body round it physically. I've made my body do things because of my mind that it shouldn't have been able to do.

When I'm injured, I eat everything - proper junk. That's the one thing about being injured so much, I get to treat myself.

A lot of healing is in the mind. I'm not talking about serious illnesses like cancer. I'm talking about ordinary broken bones. Healing begins in the head. You have to convince yourself you can do it.

I'm very lucky that I love what I do. I've never thought of it as work. I've never done it for the money.