Richard Hughes’ appeal rejected
The race to be champion jockey looks to be as good as over following the news that Richard Hughes (pictured right) has failed in his appeal against a six-day careless riding ban.
Richard Hannon’s stable jockey is currently 12 winners behind current leader Paul Hanagan in the jockeys’ championship, which comes to a conclusion on the 6th November, but this ban almost certainly puts paid to any hopes of Hughes staging a late comeback, as he will miss all of next week’s racing (October 16 to 22), including the Champions Stakes meeting at Newmarket where he would have ridden some fancied horses.
Hughes had been at the BHA headquarters this morning in an attempt to reduce the severity of the six day ban he picked up for careless riding at Wolverhampton on October 2nd, but the stewards threw out his appeal just after 11am. Hughes had already left to make his journey to Newbury today when the news was announced, but his solicitor Andrew Chalk, revealed that the title-chasing jockey was “extremely disappointed” with the outcome. In addition to the six days, Hughes will spend an extra day on the sidelines owing to using his whip with excessive frequency at the same meeting.
The charge came after Hughes rode Aviso to victory in the Cleanwastesolutions Handicap, where he was found guilty of steering his mount sharply to the left which caused multiple interference to other runners in the field.
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