As we enter the second month of the Dubai World Cup Carnival Silvestre de Sousa is already resigned to losing his jockeys’ title.
Last season the Godolphin rider carried all before him to partner more winners than any other jockey at the Carnival.
At this stage of the season 12 months ago he had ridden two doubles at Meydan Racecourse for trainer Saeed bin Suroor en route to registering 11 wins in all, and as many seconds, at an impressive strike-rate of 20 per cent.
This season, he is only marginally behind – from 30 rides at Meydan he has ridden three winners, but he lags behind Mickael Barzalona, on six, and Christophe Soumillon, on five.
De Sousa’s three wins is as many as he has ridden at Jebel Ali, highlighting that his thirst for success has taken him to all four of the UAE racecourses that have staged fixtures in 2014 so far.
It was not something Frankie Dettori, his predecessor who he will be riding against at Meydan tomorrow, was prone to do when he was at Godolphin.
“This season is going very slowly for me,” De Sousa said. “I think last year we had better horses and we don’t have the quality that we did.
“We don’t have the handicappers that are almost Group horses and we left a lot of good horses at home for a European campaign.
“I don’t think I am going to be champion jockey this season. It doesn’t mean we are not going to have winners, but we are not going to have the doubles and trebles that we did last year.”
Bin Suroor, who was champion Carnival trainer for the sixth successive time last season, has trained just four winners at Meydan this campaign but the two men are difficult to pin down for long and they team up with four runners at Meydan on Thursday.
De Sousa was declared on Tuesday aboard African Story in Round 2 of the Al Maktoum Challenge, and will also ride Ihtimal in the UAE 1,000 Guineas.
African Story is up against stablemate Hunter’s Light, who De Sousa rode to an impressive victory in last year’s Group 2 feature.
The Al Maktoum Challenge is seen largely as a stepping stone to the Dubai World Cup, in which African Story finished fifth last year with Hunter’s Light seventh. African Story, who has a habit of running well off a break, has not run since, whereas Hunter’s Light has run in four different countries without showing up well.
“There’s probably not much between those two horses but African Story goes well fresh,” De Sousa said.
“Hunter’s Light has been very busy. He’s been in Germany, Singapore, America and England – he’s been all over the place.
“It was my choice, but I could be wrong, you never know.
“Ihtimal is a lovely filly and has good form behind Group 1 winners in Europe, but I think she will be better on grass. She has done some very good work at home on the Tapeta but not the sort of work we expected. She needs to run better on Thursday than what she has been doing at home.”
sports@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @SprtNationalUAE
