HORSE RACING: Surgery boosts McCoy's Festival hopes

5:56pm Tuesday 15th January 2008

Tony McCoy is virtually "guaranteed" to be fit for the Cheltenham Festival after undergoing surgery on his back injury in Oxford's Nuffield Hospital yesterday.

The 12-times champion jockey damaged a vertebrae after he parted company with Arnold Layne in the totesport.com Classic Chase at Warwick on Saturday, prompting fears he could miss the Festival in March.

However, an MRI scan at the Nuffield Hospital, under the care of two pre-eminent spinal specialists, James Wilson-McDonald and Jeremy Fairbank, led to the rider having a corrective operation yesterday.

McCoy's personal assistant, Gee Bradburne, said: "The scan suggested there was a small piece of loose bone off the vertebrae. That can be fixed with a small operation and he is having the surgery now.

"It should speed up recovery and guarantee him to be fit for Cheltenham.

"The doctors are confident he will be fit for the Festival. The operation just stabilises the loose bone. He will be in hospital for a couple of days - we don't know exactly how long yet - and then you just have to encourage movement."

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