Jockey Tony McCoy has been crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The 15-times champion became the first person in racing to gain the nation's vote at the climax of the annual review of the sporting year, which took place at Birmingham's LG Arena.
Fifteen-times darts champion Phil Taylor finished runner-up in the prestigious awards ceremony, while heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis was third.
McCoy said: ‘This is an unbelievable feeling to be standing in front of so many amazing sports people - so many people who I look up to.
‘To win this award is very surreal.
‘I work in a wonderful sport of horse-racing and I'd like to thank every one of those (people) because I know that most of the (racing) public spent most of the night voting for me.
‘When I started off as a jockey I wanted to be champion jockey in my mind, and I have been lucky enough to be champion jockey for 15 years.
‘But the Grand National is the biggest horse race in the world and everyone knows I had won all the other races and to finally achieve that - it was just an unbelievable day.’
McCoy has ridden more than 3,000 winners and has claimed just about every big race in the National Hunt calendar, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and King George VI Chase.
However, it was his first victory in the John Smith's Grand National on the Jonjo O'Neill-trained Don't Push It in April that finally endeared him to the wider public.
It was a triumph that saw McCoy, 36, allowed his emotionless guise to slip following so many agonising failures in the world's most famous horse race at Aintree in April.
He waved his whip to the crowd in sheer delight at the relief of ending his Grand National hoodoo.
Success in the country's premier award will be seen by the racing industry as the ultimate recognition for a career that has seen McCoy rewrite the record books time and again.
Despite breaking just about every bone in his body, some more than once, he has dominated the sport ever since he became champion jockey for the first time in the 1995-96 season.
Not only is he by far the winning-most jockey in jumps history, he even overcame the legendary Sir Gordon Richards' all-time record total of 269 winners in a season in 2002.
McCoy added: ‘Without Jonjo O'Neill I wouldn't be standing here because I definitely wouldn't have won the Grand National without him.
‘To win it for JP and Norah McManus (owners of Don't Push It) was an unbelievable feeling because I knew they wanted to win it as much as I did.
‘To my wife, Chanelle, and my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, all the other lads in the weighing room who I work with every day, and I know I drive mad, thanks to them.
‘Even more amazing than winning this trophy is my daughter, Eve, who is three. I know she's going to be watching and I just want to say how amazing she is.’
Fellow jockeys joined in the praise for McCoy, with Frankie Dettori saying: ‘In my lifetime I don't think we will see anything like AP.’
Ruby Walsh added: ‘He's dominated racing like Tiger Woods dominated golf and Roger Federer dominated tennis.'
BBC SPORTS AWARDS 2010 WINNERS:
Sports Personality of the Year: Tony McCoy
Young Sports Personality: Tom Daley
Team of the Year: Europe's Ryder Cup team
Lifetime Achievement: David Beckham
Overseas Sports Personality: Rafael Nadal
Coach of the Year: Colin Montgomerie
Helen Rollason Award: Frank Williams
Unsung Sports Hero: Lance Haggith (president of the Bedfordshire Basketball Association, for his work with coaching children)
