At last Silvestre de Sousa is prepared to admit he has a chance of becoming Britain’s champion jockey this year, having been scrupulous to this point in denying any such thing. It is, of course, perfectly understandable that someone would play down his chance of achieving a major ambition when the job is barely half done but the stage has now been reached at which further denials would lack credibility.
After a typically determined De Sousa pushed his mount to victory in the opening race here on Monday the 34-year-old led his nearest pursuer in the title race by 76 wins to 57. The reigning champion is out of the picture, Richard Hughes having retired on Saturday. Ryan Moore has been sidelined indefinitely by injury. With two months left in the newly truncated Stobart-sponsored championship, the Brazilian jockey could hardly be in a better position.
The bookmakers acknowledge this by offering no bigger than 1-5 about his title chance while the jockey is now at least prepared to accept his status as contender.
“To be honest, I am quite surprised the way things are going,” De Sousa says, settling down in the weighing room for the 90-minute wait before his next ride. “That’s why I hope it just keeps going. It’s not over yet, so I just want to keep my head down.”
That surprise does not indicate a lack of faith in himself. Surely no one in racing could, at the start of the season, have guessed what the jockeys’ table would look like now. When William Hill issued a set of odds in mid-April, De Sousa was not among the 10 riders quoted at up to 66-1.
“There’s still a long way to go. I’ll give it my best shot and see how far I’m going. I’m not going to bang my head on the wall and say, ‘I have to do it.’ I just let things happen. As long as I stay in one piece and out of injury, that’s the main thing.”
Injury is certainly one obstacle which can fall between a rider and his hopes. Suspension is another and De Sousa is more at risk than most, having rattled up four whip bans between 20 April and 12 May. If he should get another whip ban of two days or more, at any time before 20 October, he will be given one of the British Horseracing Authority’s dreaded totting-up bans, which would probably mean an enforced holiday of at least nine days.
De Sousa denies that he is aware of that but the mere fact that he has gone almost three months without a single whip ban of two days or longer, having had four in three weeks, suggests it may be in his thoughts.
Only last year De Sousa missed the first fortnight of October due to a totting-up ban and anything similar this time could be disastrous if the title turns out to be closely fought. It is perhaps this consideration that makes him say: “There’s a lot of boys out there that have a good chance to win, as much as I have.”
A growing number of punters would be delighted to see him crowned. For both industry and talent, however unglamorous the venue, there is hardly anyone to match him and, of course, he came heart-breakingly close to winning the title in 2011 when Paul Hanagan beat him by four.
The trainer Mark Johnston said at Sandown recently that he still feels “a bit guilty” about that, having sent De Sousa to ride in Australia when there was only a week left in the season. But the jockey waves such thoughts away. “It was my choice. To get a ride in the Melbourne Cup is a once- or twice-in-a-lifetime experience. I never look back and, if I have to go again this year, I will do the same thing.
“I love to ride for him, to be honest. He just leaves it in my hands and I’m just thankful to him for the opportunities he’s given me in my career. He’s been great to me since day one that I started riding for him.”
De Sousa also has warm words for Hughes (“a gentleman … he has fans all over the world”) and refers to him again when asked to assess what he himself does particularly well. “Hughes is a great man to settle a horse and that’s what I think is most of the job. It’s not the style. It’s the way the horse runs for [a jockey].
“I think the main thing when you ride a horse is to understand a horse. Of course sometimes you have to tell them what to do. At the same time you have to let them feel they are, a bit, the boss.
“I don’t know, I just get on well. I just try to learn a horse before he gets down to the start, so I know what he wants.” But that might be only a couple of minutes. “It’s enough. When you are a jockey, you know a horse when you sit on him. You get half a feel of what he’s able to do.”
De Sousa did not sit on his first racehorse until the age of 17 but he has ridden other types of horse since he was “very young”, having grown up on his father’s farm. “Always I find it very easy to deal with a horse. I find it more easy to deal with a horse than with the people around me.”
