WHO'S HE? HE'S HUGHESIE, FRONT-PAGE MAN @Goodwood_Races @hughesiejockey

It is a pleasure and privilege to watch the brand of sporting excellence served up by jockey Richard Hughes at Glorious Goodwood.

He rides the place as if born to its soil, stylishly delivering winner after winner in that trademark, long-bodied, crouching style that makes him easy to pick in a race.

With six winners already this week he is clear in the Racing UK Glorious Goodwood jockeys' title and at the kernel of today's feature race, the Group One Markel Insurance Nassau Stakes, thanks to his association with favourite Sky Lantern. Analysis of their prospects fills today's racing press, and Hughes features in a rare photo outing for racing on the front page of the Financial Times.

In it he is shown winning yesterday's Bonhams Thoroughbred Stakes on Montiridge, a victory picked up by The Daily Telegraph's diary writer Ellie Pithers, who quotes Bonhams bigwig Jon Baddeley saying, 'Cars I know; horses I don't, so it [sponsorship of a horse race] is a learning curve'.

Hughes fronts today's Racing Post, while his Saturday column is as good as any by a person still active in their sport. His reflections of victory on Toronado in Wednesday's QIPCO Sussex Stakes are well worth reading, and he also ponders that race in a chat with Chris Cook in The Guardian. Cook quotes him saying, 'If I never ride another winner I will die a happy man'.

That may be so, but he would love to win today's big race on favourite Sky Lantern. In his Racing Post review, Hughes says: 'I'm convinced she'll relish an extra two furlongs.'

Taking on a jockey who seems to have a mesmeric hold on Glorious Goodwood is a risky strategy, but Hughes can be beaten says The Independent's Chris McGrath, claiming  Hot Snap will bring 'Sky down to earth'. Another iconoclast is Marcus Armytage, who sides with Ambivalent in his The Daily Telegraph column, and it no great surprise that Star columnist and jockey Jamie Spencer prefers Just The Judge, his mount in the contest. A page of the Star is given over to a Tony Lewis 'exclusive' interview with that filly's trainer, Charlie Hills.

The Racing Post's Pricewise columnist Tom Segal reckons Hughes will lift the day's big handicap, the Robins Farm Racing Stewards' Cup, on the Richard Hannon-trained Ninjago, a view shared by Rob Wright in The Times.

Not surprisingly, this contest has generated wide disagreement among newspaper tipsters although Rex Imperator is the suggestion of Templegate in the Sun, Chris McGrath in The Independent and Paterick Weaver in the Star. Opposing them is Robin Goodfellow in the Daily Mail, who suggests Prodigality, while Heaven's Guest is the suggestion of the Daily Mirror's Newsboy and Cook. Racy would be an appropriate winner, and he is tipped by the Daily Express's Computerman.

Racing gains frequent media interest through the famous names involved in it - witness triumphs at Glorious Goodwood this week for football famesters Michael Owen, Sir Alex Ferguson and Harry Redknapp. In Clare Balding it not only has a smooth presenter regularly seen on Channel 4 Racing, but also a familiar figure across other sporting and general interest programmes on radio and television. She is the most recognisable sports presenter since Des Lynam's peak.

A profile of Balding fills a two-page spread in today's Sun TV magazine, in which she reveals her dad, Ian, would have liked her to be 'a professional nothing', adding, 'My dad still doesn't believe women should be professionals at anything'. Heaven forbid! And deny us what the magazine calls 'a national treasure'.

In that regard Balding is not unlike 'Hughesie', a genius who peaks at Glorious Goodwood, and invariably swoops to victory.