Racing

Richard Hughes makes final fling at King George Stakes

Champion jockey given last chance at Ascot on Eagle Top before his retirement

Richard Hughes was second in the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 2007. Photograph: Getty.
Richard Hughes was second in the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 2007. Photograph: Getty.
Thu Jul 23 2015 - 18:54

Richard Hughes

, the champion jockey, will get a final chance to win the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes just eight days before he retires from the saddle after he was booked to ride

Eagle Top

, the second-favourite, against the Derby winner

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Golden Horn

at

Ascot

on Saturday.

John Gosden, the trainer of both Eagle Top and Golden Horn, turned to Hughes to partner Eagle Top after William Buick, Gosden's stable jockey until the start of this season, was claimed to ride Romsdal for Godolphin Racing. Frankie Dettori, Gosden's principal rider this season, will maintain his unbeaten partnership with Golden Horn.

Middle-distance highlight

Hughes has yet to win the King George, the Group One middle-distance highlight of the summer season at Ascot. He finished second on Youmzain behind the 5 to 4 favourite

Dylan Thomas

in 2007, and third on the same horse behind another hot favourite, Duke Of Marmalade, a year later.

Golden Horn is generally a 1 to 2 chance to win on Saturday and become only the fourth horse to win the Derby, Eclipse Stakes and King George in the same season since the foundation of the Ascot race in 1951. Eagle Top is top-priced at 8 to 1 alongside Snow Sky, who beat him by nearly four lengths in the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot last month.

The bare form of that race suggests that Eagle Top is unlikely to reverse the placings on Saturday, but Snow Sky benefited from a flawless front-running ride by Pat Smullen while Eagle Top, with Dettori riding, was involved in jostling with Luca Cumani's Postponed in the early stages. Postponed is also in the line-up for Saturday's race, but Adam Kirby, who rode him at the Royal meeting, has been replaced by Andrea Atzeni.

Eagle Top also lined up for the King George 12 months ago, when his owner Lady Bamford paid £75,000 (€106,000) to supplement him to the field after an impressive win in the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot.

He started at 4 to 1 and finished strongly from off the pace to be fourth of eight runners behind Taghrooda, also trained by Gosden, but did not race again as a three-year-old because the race "took a bit too much out of him" according to Hugo Lascelles, Lady Bamford's racing manager. Guardian Service