'We need help' - Richard Hughes makes staffing plea and warns of industry crisis

A staffing crisis in British racing has left yards at breaking point, according to Richard Hughes, who has made an impassioned plea for racing to put more pressure on the UK government to relax restrictions on foreign workers in a bid to ease the strain.

Hughes, who has spent his entire life in the sport as a jockey and now trainer, highlighted the number of vacancies on the careersinracing website, around 50 for stable staff in recent weeks, as an indicator of how bad things had become, saying he went three months without any response to one advert.

Based in Lambourn, Hughes, who won three champion jockey titles, feared stretched staff would be lost to the industry forever should something not be done, while Derby-winning trainer Marcus Tregoning said recruitment was "harder than ever".