Richard Hughes (jockey) a change in the rules regarding horse welfare. On 13 October 2011, it was announced that Hughes was giving up his racing licence and quitting the sport out of protest at the ban. Hughes did not follow up on this threat and on 15 October 2012 he equaled Frankie Dettori's record of winning seven races in a single meeting by winning seven out of eight races at Windsor Racecourse. The following month, he claimed his first British flat racing Champion Jockey title with 172 winners over the season. In May 2013, after a long wait, he won his first British
Joe Mercer (jockey) Cup and the Doncaster Cup, despite having to give Ardross, the next year's Ascot Gold Cup winner and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe second, weight in both races. Mercer completed a four-timer at Royal Ascot with his victory on John Sutcliffe's Tender Heart in the Royal Hunt Cup. By mid-summer rumours as to who would ride for whom the following season were rife. It had been made known that Lester Piggott was severing his partnership with the Sangster- Magnier Vincent O’Brien stable at Ballydoyle and also Mercer had been told that Pat Eddery (Peter Walwyn's stable jockey) had been approached