Glorious Goodwood is almost upon us and it seems that no one is looking forward to the five days more than Richard Hughes.
Hughes has been crowned the meeting's top jockey for the past two seasons and rode more more than twice as many winners at the track in 2011 than his nearest rival.
It's a course that has to be ridden with confidence so, it's perhaps, no surprise to see that the leading jockeys at Goodwood that are still plying their trade are Frankie Dettori, Hughes, Kieren Fallon and Ryan Moore.
Indeed, that quartet have won 10 of the last 15 Jockey's Title awards at the meeting with only Kevin Darley, Mick Kinane, Jimmy Fortune and Johnny Murtagh breaking their stranglehold.
This year the award is being sponsored by Racing UK and Hughes has been installed as the favourite across the board, albeit only narrowly from Moore.
Writing in his Racing Post column on Saturday, Hughes revealed that he was expecting to enjoy a hugely successful week on the Sussex Downs and said that "If I ride fewer than five winners I won't feel I've had a good Glorious Goodwood."
Now, confidence - as I've mentioned - is a virtue at Goodwood but there are good reasons to believe that Hughes is not overstating his prospects for next week.
His tallys for the last two seasons have been five and nine respectively and five winners would have been good enough to have claimed the title in 10 of the last 15 seasons.
All of Hughes' winners have come for his boss, Richard Hannon, who has, not surprisingly, won the trainers' title for the last two seasons as well to make it three titles in four years.
Mark Johnston picked up the award in 2009 and his string could hardly have hit form at a better time ahead of a meeting in which he has an incredible record.
Johnston has ended as the week's top trainer on no fewer than seven occasions with his first title coming in 1998. The only other trainers to have won it during that period are Saeed bin Suroor, the now retired Barry Hills and David Nicholls.
As well as winning three Stewards' Cups, Nicholls has enjoyed plenty of success at the meeting in general and not least with the remarkable Zuhair who won the same handicap for an unbelievable four years in succession.
As much respect as their runners will warrant, good weeks for the pair are unlikely to have a significant impact on the jockeys' title.
Moore will pick up some useful spares but looks far too short at around the 2-1 mark while William Buick is another to make little appeal at prices between 4-1 and 6s.
John Gosden is enjoying a quite remarkable year and has an undoubtedly strong hand while Buick is another jockey not short on confidence and he did make it onto the leaderboard for the most winners during 2011 when crossing the line in front on five occasions.
Gosden, however, is only ninth on the list of current trainers at the meeting behind Nicholls and Luca Cumani among others and it's the latter's success that makes Fallon an interesting outsider at up to 33-1.
Cumani may not have a huge number of Pattern race performers on his hands this days but he remains a top-class trainer who is adept at picking off top handicaps.
Fallon may only need to pick up a couple of live spares to give himself an outside chance of contending having proved beyond doubt this season that he's riding as well as ever.
Another outsider that piques the interest is Frankie Dettori who comes alive on the big stage.
It's been a relatively quiet year thus far for his principal stable but Saeed bin Suroor has been crowned top trainer on a couple of occasions and the pair look set to have live claims of landing the Artemis Goodwood Cup for starters.
Like Fallon, Dettori should also come in for his share of lively spares and could give his supporters a run for their money at a tasty 33-1.
There is no doubt in my mind where the value lies, however, and that is at the head of the market with the odds against about Richard Hughes making plenty of appeal and, although his book of rides on Tuesday wouldn't be the strongest, I expect him to have done enough to have retained his title come Saturday afternoon.
