I suggest the twins are identically moderate...RH's is a fine exponent of H&H riding and rarely ever uses his stick,the occasional backhander administered merely a token effort blow.His CV is distinctly average when one considers his employer and the talent at his disposal.However,these things,as always,are utterly subjective.
The thing with Richard Hills is he has the habit of getting the best horses in races beaten by poor tactical positioning (espec. hold-up horses), and an even more annoying habit in that when you back another horse in a race, he'll go ans steal the race from the front! But seriously, imagine its Galileo v Fantastic Light in the final furlong. Richard Hills is on Galileo, and Paul Hanagan on Fantastic Light. I think the latter would win the tight finish every time, even over 12f! (Though Galileo is my fave horse and should beat FL over 12f every time)
You have to ask yourself if they would have been as successful without the patronage of their father. The answer has to be no.
Topclass,I was at L'town the day FL beat Galileo in the ICS and agree the best horse was beaten...Godolphin got their team tactics right that day...There was stunned silence when the Derby winner was touched off,except for my screaming wife (FB then!) who backed Frankie.FL did get a fantastic ovation when passsing by the stand again en route to the paddock....great race.
Fulkes, it is perfectly reasonable to assert that the Hills twins would not have been as successful without their father’s patronage. The whole family are in the sport. I bet their mother made clothes out of curtains and yodelled about lonely goatherds before marrying their father. This does disguise the fact that Barry Hills trains horses for their owners, not for his sons. If the horses were not winning, the owners would want the jockeys changed if they perceived this to be the issue. Accepted he does train and has trained quite a few horses for owners who retain their own jockeys but nepotism would not have kept paying the stable bills.
I think thats quite simplistic Quartermoon, first of all the idea that having a financial interest then makes all viewpoints clouded and null and void is clearly not so, in the case of some it would but very few, especially very few on here. It is perfectly possible to retain a balanced view of a ride despite having put a tenner on it, i dont know many people for who ten pound turns them into such a mess and incapable of seeing nothing other than their lost tenner. Secondly i think most would avoid backing Richard Hills but if Frankel is being ridden by Richard Hills and you can see he is the best horse in the race and the price is good you sometimes have to take a chance that the jockey wont mess it up, you cannot really complain if he does mess it up but to take his horse out the race every race he rides in would be crazy when evaluating a race. You are effectively saying that because we think he is rubbish races should be evaluated without his ride being included. I have always taken the greatest vote of no confidence in Richard Hills to be the fact that at many meetings he will be offered no rides other than his retained mounts. Ryan Moore or Richard Hughes may go to ride a Hannon or Stoute horse but are snapped up for other mounts whilst Richard watches the races on TV in the weighing room.
Bluesky9, I will assume that you are responding to my initial posting on this thread about how punters moan about the jockeys most when they have had a bet on a loser. I did not say that those who berate jockeys are exclusively on this forum or any other. I used to work for a number of years for one of our larger High Street bookmakers so I have some experience of punters’ complaints. Perhaps the question should be “name a jockey who has never ridden a bad race”. I have seen bad rides by Lester Piggott, Frankie Dettori, Pat Eddery, Willie Carson, Kieran Fallon, Mick Kinane, Jamie Spencer, Ryan Moore, Richard Hughes... how long a list do you want? The Hills boys do not have exclusivity when it comes to making bad split-second decisions in races. Your assertion that Richard Hills is “offered no other rides than his retained mounts” suggests that you have some inside knowledge to which the rest of us are not party. It may be that forty-eight year old Mr Hills does not have an agent chasing other rides for him as in the latter years of his career he does not fancy the hours of travelling the country to fulfil such commitments and he is not trying to win the jockeys’ title when the opposition includes hungry youngsters like Ryan Moore and Paul Hanagan. Please feel free to avoid backing the mounts of any jockeys that you dislike. I do not back any particular horse because of the midget in the saddle but work off the principal that all jockeys make mistakes occasionally so I just try to back what I consider to be the best horse and hope that in that particular race the jockey aboard does not screw up. I have backed plenty of losers where the jockey was clearly at fault (in my opinion) but that does not immediately make their whole career worthless. There are plenty of top flight jockeys with a much worse career record than either of the Hills twins.
Quartermoon, You are raising and defending new statements that no one has even made. No one said Richard Hills is the only jockey to have made a mistake and nobody said that when they make a mistake it then makes thier whole career worthless, and no one needs inside info on him being offered other rides as its on the racecard each day. I also agreed that you cannot really avoid a jockey in a particular race as it effectively means you have to take his horse out of all reckonings and that would have course give a very distorted view. My point was essentially in response to the question is he any good and my view is no, and that it is possible to come to that view without it being in response to a losing bet which was what you implied. It is my view that if he loses the Hamdan job he would have to retire, Murtagh lost the Coolmore job and forced retirement was never a possibility nor when Fallon has had any of his problems as trainers know a good jockey more than any of us.
Explain this one to me as I obviously cannot mind read. According to your logic, if Richard Hills goes to Catterick and rides one horse, owned by Hamdan Al Maktoum and trained by Barry Hills, and has no other mounts this is because no other trainers have offered him any mounts. This cannot possibly be because Richard Hills’ agent has not gone down the list of five-day entries and phoned trainers seeking mounts. I do not know what his current minimum weight is but the horses that he could have ridden might have been scratched at the final declaration stage so nobody is riding them. That is not possible either. Given that Hills only had one potential mount on the card at the five-day entry stage, trainers could have assumed that the horse might not have been declared at the overnight stage or that he would not be travelling up to Catterick if there were entries at other bigger meetings. As the horses that run generally at Catterick are not World beaters and would largely come from Northern stables that have their own jockeys, such as Richard Fahey or Mark Johnston, trainers might not be phoning around for the services of the senior jockeys like they might do for their runners at the Ebor meeting at York, where there is bigger prize money. The fact that Bluesky9 does not think that Richard Hills is a good jockey is a matter of opinion, to which you are entitled, and does not appear to be supported by his career statistics. The point that I originally made was a direct answer to the question that Cyclonic111 asked and I stand by my original assertion that the people who lambast a jockey’s particular performance are predominately punters doing so through their pockets. The jockey was not rubbish when they put their bet on but he is rubbish when he has not won. That maxim applies to every jockey. As I write this there will be punters somewhere having a go at Tony McCoy for losing on a favourite at Newton Abbot. Ergo, he must be rubbish.
If at the Ebor meeting when everyone knows he will be there and there are big fields from top yards, if Richard Hills barely has a ride outside his retainer would you conceed that it's possible trainers do not rate him? You seem rattled Quartermoon yet we seem to agree on the fact that Richard Hills being a poor jockey is merely my opinion as the original question asked. He is not difinitivly a poor jockey as it is all subjective with opinions. We do disagree in as much as you ascertain that opinions are formed only from losing bets whilst i consider it perfectly possible to form an intelligent opinion regardless of having bet or not for most people. On the point of his record as i personally feel (only an opinion again) that if you put a reasonable claimer on those horses they would more or less have the same record. I simply consider that Moore, Fallon etc win races for their mounts sometimes where as Richard Hills can do the opposite more than most. This does not make him a bad person nor have a worthless career or any other severe reaction but it is simply the opinion i have formed, is it ok that i have that opinion ?
Bluesky9, I will not be conceding that if Richard Hills does not have six rides a day at York that trainers do not rate him as I have already stated previously that there can be umpteen reasons for a jockey only having a handful of rides but you can mind read and know better. If Kieran Fallon does not have six rides a day, nobody will be claiming that trainers do not rate him, except possibly the psychic fraternity. The original question asked “Are the Hills boys really crap?” It is the title of the thread. Cyc listed their career statistics and I gave my opinion that they cannot be that bad to have lasted thirty plus years riding fifty winners a year. I did not “ascertain that opinions are formed only from losing bets” but I did offer my opinion that the opinion of many punters is entirely coloured by their betting. Such opinions can easily be discounted. Interesting that Michael Hills seems to have hardly managed a mention on this thread despite being one of the Hills boys.
