In just his second full season of racing, Richards has been given the opportunity on Class Clown in the $170,000 Wagga Gold Cup.

The 24-year-old qualified builder, turned jockey, will go head-to-head with the likes of Tommy Berry, Glyn Schofield and Tim Clark but it's not something that bothers Richards.

"I've seen them before, they come down to other meetings at Canberra and that sort of thing," Richards said.

"So it will be just like another race for me. I'm excited and looking forward to it."

Richards has formed a strong association with the Chris Heywood stable in recent times.

He won the Gundagai Cup on Class Clown last month and has retained the ride for the Cup.

Richards also rode Fermanagh Lad for Heywood in Thursday's $150,000 Wagga Town Plate.

"It's great, especially with the two lead up races into it, being able to win the Prelude (with Fermanagh Lad) and Gundagai Cup. They deserve their chance in the race, winning those two races.

"Class Clown has been racing well. He gets in at the minimum again. He's got a good barrier, hopefully he'll just jump out in front and do his best."

Class Clown led when winning at Gundagai and has enjoyed some of his best performances from in front. Last start, Heywood was keen to take a sit and Class Clown battled on for second behind Hayne Plane.

Richards will wait to see the instructions from connections.

"I'll talk to Chris and see what he wants to do. We'll just race him where he normally races, with his racing pattern and he'll be trying his best," he said.

"Whatever the outcome is, we'll have tried our best."

Heywood said Class Clown could lead and if he doesn't, he won't be far away.

"Look, I won't rule it out but he has to be handy. That's his key. If he can be, he'll try his best," Heywood said.

"I probably didn't help Josh with instructions (last start). I was hoping that a couple of other horses would have went forward earlier than what they did. He ended up crawling and he probably should have took the bull by the horns and went further forward but what it is, is what it is.

"He still had to bring the field up to the rest of them and he had to give the other horse a heap of weight. He drops back to nothing. He's good, he's happy and he's come through that run the other day beautiful."

Heywood has not given up on the dream of knocking off his more-fancied rivals.

"He's best chance to is probably here, against them on his home track," he said.

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