TONY McCoy wasted no time in getting back amongst the winners after a three-week lay-off with victory on Wiltshire-trained horse Southfield Royale at Fontwell.

However, despite taking his tally for the season to 153 on his only ride of the day, the 19-times champion jockey, who lives near Marlborough, believes the dream of reaching 300 winners by the end of the campaign is out of the question.

McCoy showed no rustiness nor lack of fitness after recovering from rib and shoulder injuries as he gave the four-year-old, trained by Neil Mulholland at Conkwell Grange Stables near Winsley, a typically strong ride to land in the Free Tips At raceclear.co.uk Novices' Hurdle.

Coologue, the 1-2 favourite, looked to be going well for Noel Fehily, but McCoy asked his mount for extra and Southfield Royale (2-1) obliged to score by two and a half lengths.

"You can't afford to miss any days and it's impossible to ride 300 winners now. You've got to accept the fact," said McCoy.

"You've just got to ride as many as you can and hopefully some good ones along the way.

"I'm very lucky, I've had a lot of good people looking after me.

"I was slightly worried about the ground (for this horse) as he won his bumper at Market Rasen on better ground, but he's a good type and Neil's done well.

"He said the more he jumped at home, the better he was.

"He jumped pretty well for a horse first time and you'd have to like him."

Mulholland told At The Races: "We've always thought a lot of him (Southfield Royale).

"He's very well bred and thankfully he's done what we were hoping he would do.

"It looked like a two-horse race and it looked like a good place to start.

"We wanted to find out and learn a little bit about him and it's paid off.

"Having his first run over hurdles, we wanted to be as good a confidence booster as possible. We won't rush him."