If a bookmaker were to price up the point at which Silvestre de Sousa will admit that he could be Britain’s champion jockey this season, the second week of October might well be a shade of odds-on. The clear leader in this year’s title race, which ends, controversially, on 17 October, put on his best poker face here on Friday and insisted that the title race is the last thing on his mind. “I don’t think I have any chance at all,” he said, edging all the while towards the safety of the weighing room. “There’s still such a long way to go.”
The second statement is true enough. The first, however, is surely a bluff and De Sousa’s riding arrangements this weekend the “tell” that gives it away. He has six booked rides on the valuable card at Newbury – and two more at Lingfield in the evening. Then he is off to Redcar on Sunday. De Sousa is on a season-long roll and intends to ride it for as long as he can.
Two of his five booked mounts here were non-runners, while the three that got to post all failed to trouble the judge. Yet before the evening meetings De Sousa, on 52, was still six clear of Hughes on 46, who announced on Friday evening that he is to quit race riding to concentrate on his training career straight after Glorious Goodwood in two weeks’ time.
Hanagan had 45 before the evening meetings, one more than James Doyle, who did not ride on Friday, while William Buick moved on to 44 with two wins on Friday.
A six-winner lead might not sound significant when most meetings have at least as many races. Another way to look at it, though, is that De Sousa has ridden nearly 13% more winners in the current campaign than anyone else bar Ryan Moore, who will be on 51 until he returns from the injury he suffered in an incident in the stalls at Newmarket’s July meeting. If De Sousa, who was four winners behind Hanagan in the 2011 title race, can keep doing what he has been doing so far, someone in the chasing pack will need to hit a golden run of form to reel him in.
And there is no obvious sign that De Sousa is slowing down. So far, during the two and a half months of the turf season that actually counts towards the title, a bet on all his mounts is showing a £50 return to a £1 level stake. His mounts are outperforming the market’s expectations. He had 16 winners in May, 24 in June and currently another dozen in July. De Sousa is riding with confidence and consistency, a potent combination.
“It’s not [in my mind] at the moment,” De Sousa said. “I’m riding [at Lingfield on Saturday] because it’s my job, I have to go wherever they give me a ride but it’s still such a long way to go. You need to have a big stable behind you. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll just keep rolling and keep trying to ride winners.”
De Sousa is hardly alone in playing down the championship at this stage. Doyle and Buick have both said that their first obligation is to Godolphin, their main employer.
De Sousa flew to Australia to ride in the Melbourne Cup in 2011 on the first Tuesday in November in the midst of his title battle with Hanagan, and returned in time to ride a winner at Kempton Park on Wednesday. On Friday he was out of Nottingham in a blur after riding in the 4.35 to fight the rush-hour traffic on the way to Pontefract. If De Sousa remains fit, he seems sure to ride at, or very close to, the BHA limit of nine meetings per week from now until November because it is just the way he goes about his job. He will give his all, whether the title is on his mind or not.
Work ethic, a strike rate nudging 20% and his healthy level-stakes profit would make De Sousa a worthy champion from a punter’s point of view. It could be seen as a reverse for the decision to meddle with the championship’s structure too, which was supposedly to increase its appeal to the weighing room’s elite. Just one of De Sousa’s 52 victories this year was in a Pattern race, a Group Three at Epsom on Oaks day.
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