De Sousa maintains focus
Thursday 2 April 2020 12:23, UK
Silvestre de Sousa will not be changing his approach to riding in the coming weeks despite the injury to Ryan Moore.
It is four years since the Brazilian jockey missed out on the jockeys' championship crown by just four winners to Paul Hanagan and he appears in pole position to go one better after Moore, who currently leads the race on 51 winners, was hurt in a stalls incident at Newmarket last week.
The length of Moore's absence has not yet been confirmed but Shelley Dwyer, wife of trainer Chris and De Sousa's new agent since the start of the campaign, insists talk of being crowned champion has not been mentioned.
"Everyone wants to see Ryan back riding as soon as possible as he's obviously a great jockey and so good to watch," she said.
"Silvestre is so good to work with and hasn't even mentioned his desire to be champion jockey, but I suppose it's every jockey's dream.
"As we saw last week, it's a tough old sport and anything can happen and Silvestre just wants to ride as many winners as he can and try to stay safe. That's all you can do.
"We're not planning to change too much. We're not going to start jetting off here, there and everywhere. Things aren't going too badly at the moment, so we'll just keep things as they are.
"Silvestre has had plenty of good supporters this year and hopefully they'll all keep supporting us."
Dwyer believes that with Moore set for a spell on the sidelines, other jockeys may have more of an eye on the title.
Paul Hanagan, champion jockey in 2010 and 2011, is on 43 winners for the campaign, as is Richard Hughes, who could secure his fourth successive title in his final season riding.
Dwyer said: "With Ryan out of action it might just spur on a few more jockeys to have a go at it. Paul Hanagan is doing very well at the moment and Richard Hughes might just go for it a bit more, so we'll see what happens.
"Silvestre is suspended today, Tuesday and Wednesday, but having ridden every day for goodness knows how long, it won't do him any harm to have a few days off.
"He'll be back on Thursday, it's looking like he'll be at Leicester and Doncaster and away we go again, pedal to the mettle."
