The turf
Walking tall
Robin Oakley
Despite the dramatic gesture at Newmar- ket I doubt if the Woods ticker had been under as much pressure as he indicated, for we had just seen a magnificent ride from Richard Hughes. Indeed, Lamboum train- er Willie Muir, standing next to me, called it one of the rides of the season. It was a lesson in how to wait in front, the sort of tactic that makes a jockey look brilliant when he brings it off but which can make him look a little chump when it does not.
Richard Hughes had taken Fait Le Jojo straight into the lead from the stalls and dictated the tempo from there. Four fur- longs out he began turning the screw, subtly increasing the pace and making the others work to get to him. Bid Me Welcome and Tensile tried to come and tackle the leader but he had sapped them just enough and was ridden out to a well-deserved victory. It takes confidence to ride that kind of race, the kind of confidence that Frankie Dettori showed us when leading all the way on Bachir to win at Ascot, and there is no jock- ey riding with more confidence this season than the beanpole Irishman, son of jump jockey Dessie Hughes and at 5ft 9ins one of the tallest Flat jockeys riding.
Only the previous Sunday he had led all the way to win on Persian Punch at Deauville for David Elsworth and I have counted winners in the last fortnight too for Ian Balding, Neville Callaghan, Roger Charlton, William Haggas and Hughie Morrison, as well as for the Richard Han- non stable where Richard Hughes is part of the furniture. At Salisbury he scored a four-timer which showed every aspect of a jockey's art, keeping well up with the pace on Bourgainville, making virtually all on Summer View, coming with a late flourish on Fletcher inside the final furlong and persevering with Burgundy to draw away in the final furlong after the horse had looked not to be going particularly well in the mid- dle of the race.
What is interesting about his recent series of successes as a front runner is that Hughes has made his reputation over the past two seasons as a jockey able to swoop late in a race and judge his finish to perfection. He won many plaudits for doing just that on Tayseer in this year's Stewards Cup at Good- wood, a repeat of his tactics in the same race the previous year when he won on Roger Charlton's Harmonic Way. I remember last year John Hills telling me that Hughes had the precious capacity with horses suspected of being non-triers of being able to put them to sleep at the back of the field and come fly- ing at the end when others had had enough. Richard himself told me that too often in England races start too soon and that it is less a case of his horses flying at the finish than the others stopping.
What it boils down to is that he is a top- class judge of pace, a jockey with a clock built into his brain. He may not quite be in the battle to be champion jockey but he is a sure bet to exceed the 100 winners by a comfortable margin this year, And if you ever see Hughes doing his minimum weight of 8st .5113, then back his mount. A jockey his size only does that weight for something he really fancies.
Having got up the £22 forecast in Fait Le Jojo's race I have some of the Tote's money to play with for once, and if John Dunlop runs his Vision of Night in the big Haydock sprint this weekend, then I shall invest all of it. After Pat Eddery had brought the four- year-old home an impressive winner of the Charles Heidsieck Champagne Hopeful Stakes, the race won the previous year by Luca Cumani's classy Arkadian Hero, the Arundel trainer told us that he was very pleased with him and that he might well go for the Haydock Sprint Cup if he came out well from the Newmarket race. Vision of Night is back at the right trade after a year in America where he had been sent in the hope that he would get a mile on their tight tracks. He did not, but he left some good ones behind him last Friday and should have a good future here in sprint races. He is a stronger horse now. Watch, too, for Lit- tlefeather, who finished well after being slowly away and forced to switch.
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