Brazilian Silvestre de Sousa will be crowned British Flat Jockey Champion on Saturday as he currently has an unassailable lead of 36 over nearest challenger William Buick.
The controversial decision to change the starting point of the championships from the Guineas meeting at Newmarket in early May, and the ending point to the Champions Day meeting at Ascot in mid-October, has not had the intended effect of bringing the elite jockeys to the forefront.
However, an injury at a crucial stage to Ryan Moore and the retirement of the pre-season favourite Richard Hughes after the Glorious Goodwood meeting also contributed to the runaway win by De Sousa.
The championship previously ran from the beginning of the turf flat season in March through to its end in November, although All Weather wins do also count during the championship period.
However, as part of the statement made when announcing the change, Great British Racing said, “The new Jockeys’ Championship will replace a title contest which, on occasions, has seen leading jockeys either publicly rule themselves out from competing due to its attritional nature or who are absent on overseas riding duties at its start and end.”
De Sousa, who counted the like of leading Northern trainer Mark Johnston as well as Mick Channon and David Elsworth as his chief supporters, had three Gr 3s and the Gr 1 Juddmonte International as his only Group winners during the championship period.
Ryan Moore, regarded by many as the best jockey in the world, had seven Gr 1 wins, seven Gr 2 wins and three Gr 3 wins in Europe during his curtailed championship period, and was in the title race until a neck injury attained when unseated in the stalls at Newmarket on July 9 put him on the sidelines for a while.
Moore is currently in 13th place in the championship, but his strike rate of 22% is the highest on the log. However, his 61 winners are not even half those of the 132 winners to date of De Sousa, who has ridden to a strike rate of 18%.
William Buick’s chief obligations have been to Godolphin and he is currently on 96 winners ridden at a strike rate of 20%, one clear of the twice champion Paul Hanagan.
De Sousa’s previous best finish was as runner up to Hanagan in 2011 when riding 161 winners to the latter’s 165.
The championship race lost a lot of its spark when Richard Hughes, who had won the previous three titles, announced he would retire after the Glorious Goodwood meeting, which takes place at the beginning of August. Hughes was still in the title hunt when he made the announcement in July and apologised to those who had backed him for the title before adding that he felt his first year as a trainer next year would be his most important, so he needed to devote all his time to the pending Sales.
Brazilian De Sousa joins the like of Australia’s Scobie Breasley (1957, 1961, 1962 and 1963), South Africa’s Michael Roberts (1992) and Frankie Dettori (1994, 1995 and 2004) as Non-British or Irish jockeys to have won the title.
By David Thiselton
Picture: Silvestre de Sousa (Independent.co.uk)
