Hughes to ride stakes favourite

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 8

Hughes to ride stakes favourite

As chance mounts go, G. F. Hughes could not wish for anything better than Awocato in the first running of the $5OOO Canterbury Challenge Stakes at Riccarton on Wednesday. Hughes was engaged for Awocato yesterday as replacement for the stable apprentice, R. J. McCann, who won on the attractive chestnut on Saturday, but was suspended from race riding after an inquiry into a race later in the day. Awocato is top-weight with 8-0 in the Canterbury Challenge Stakes. He carried 8-1 In a race with a pound lower minimum when he won the Middle Park Plate by a length from the Wash-dyke-trained Kenny Day on Saturday.

The Middle Park Plate was run over five furlongs. The distance of the Canterbury Challenge Stakes is six furlongs, and it will probably suit Awocato more than anything else in the race. Kenny Day carried 7-11 J, including 4Jlb over-weight, in showing his first flash of form on Saturday. He has 7-9 on Wednesday. Cally Rai, third on Saturday with 7-10, has 41b less on Wednesday. Smart Mellay, the unplaced favourite in the Middle Park Plate in which she carried topweight of 8-7, will carry 101 b less in the Stakes. She lost a length or so at the start of the Middle Park Plate and from outside the furlong she could make no headway on the heels of a dose-run-ning line of horses.