The turf
Weight watching
Robin Oakley
Having taken up the habit at the age of eight and given it up at ten, smoking the mixture of camel dung and floor scrapings that passed for cigarettes in our local stores in Zambia at the time, I have never been one to make much fuss about the fug which smokers create around them. What does irritate me is what they do with their debris.
On a blissfully hot day at Epsom last weekend I broke off from drinking a pint of iced lemonade for a conversation with a friend, leaving my drink on the bar. Noting it was still there three minutes later I thankfully drained the rest at one go, only to discover in mid gulp that some kind soul had extinguished his last cigarette by drop- ping it in my glass. It is, I can promise you, an instant cure for anyone who ever feels any attraction to the noxious weed. I am thinking of taking out a patent.
If anyone needs any lessons in self-disci- pline, mind you, they could try applying to Richard Hughes, a jockey riding this sea- son like a man inspired and a man long ago nicknamed The Coat Hanger' in the weighing room. At 5ft 9ins tall he rides at 8st 71b despite having dispensed with the sauna he used to have at home. He'll have a cup of coffee and a bit of chocolate in the morning before he pulls out to ride work for Richard Hannon at 7.30. During racing hours he will supplement that with a cup of tea and a biscuit. And when he gets home at night he will, maybe, have a little smoked salmon and brown bread. 'But if there's evening racing and I'm home really late then I probably won't bother.' He does allow himself a decent meal occasionally and when with friends he insists there is no problem about his lifestyle. 'It's only a problem when reporters say it is. When it's going well every day and you're riding win- ners it's grand.'
It is a regime that makes the average Spartan look a softie but it seems to do Richard Hughes no harm. So far this sea- son he has ridden 72 winners and he's hop- ing to get the century up before the season is done. Son of former jumps jockey and trainer Dessie Hughes, Richard Hughes was apprenticed to his father and rode his first 150 winners in Ireland. And it wasn't made easy for him. When he had ridden out his claim and became a fully-fledged jockey he was forced to continue mucking out for another two years after that.
Two bits of advice from his father have stuck with him: 'The day you stop trying to improve is the day you give up' and, more surprisingly for an Irish jockey, 'Jockeys should be seen and not heard.'
He can talk when it matters. His chief employer Richard Hannon says that Hugh- es is the valuable sort who can tell you plenty about a horse when he gets off its back. But trying to get him to talk about his successes, which include an Italian Derby victory on Bahamian Knight in 1994, his first riding in England, is like trying to per- suade a squirrel to hand over its nuts. He rode over here initially for Mick Channon and regular employers now include Roger Charlton and Jeremy Noseda. There have been rides over hurdles as well for Noel Meade, Mouse Morris and Eddie O'Grady as well as for Martin Pipe on this side of the water. But Richard has no plans to expand his jumping career as yet.
To me Richard Hughes has two particu- lar qualities, a clock in his head and the ability to get a horse to switch off early in a race and conserve its energy for when it matters. Two rides in particular this season stick in my mind. In the Stewards Cup at Goodwood he came flying through a wall of beaten horses at the end to land the prize with Harmonic Way, a horse he had insisted to Roger Charlton would win a big sprint. 'Roger was getting sick of me saying it but I knew his ability. I knew he'd win a big one. He needs a big field.' Equally typi- cal was his victory at Newbury on Charl- ton's Borgia, a frustrating filly who should have won more races. He cruised up to the leaders on the bit and you could see two furlongs out that she could win the race when he wanted. He has that way of mak- ing things like that very easy, probably much easier than they are, when he is on a decent horse.
Trainer John Hills, who had just had a nice win with The Deputy when we spoke at Epsom, calls Hughes 'very talented', say- ing that he was very good with the non-tri- ers, being able to put them to sleep at the back and come flying at the end when the others had had enough. 'Like Lester, with that long frame he squeezes them with the knees and you don't even see he's working until he starts with the arms.'
When I asked Richard about his reputa- tion for coming with the latest of late swoops to capture races on the line he said, `In a three-mile chase you don't kick one and half miles out and it's the same with shorter races too. Horses only last so long. Too often in England a race starts at half way. People think my horses are picking up and flying. More often than not it is a case of the others stopping. There should be more sectional timing of the races here than people would realise.' Richard Hannon says of the jockey who splits most of his rides with Dane O'Neill: `He's a natural. He'll do for me any time. They run to the top of their ability with him. He's particularly good on staying horses, horses that need a little bit of spe- cial treatment. He's a good judge of pace.'
Given that lengthy frame and the punish- ing diet, comparisons with Lester Piggott are inevitable and the picture of Piggott was the only one on Richard Hughes's bed- room wall as a boy. At 27, he says modestly that their only similarity is height. But this is a jockey with the temperament and the brain to ride top-class horses in top-class races. And what you cannot doubt is the motivation of a man who has to work as hard as he does to stay at a competitive rid- ing weight.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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