Brian Hughes: 'The new AP? I'm a bit embarrassed to be put in that category'

This insightful interview with champion jockey Brian Hughes was originally published in the Racing Post on Sunday, February 13 and has now been made free to read for users of the new Racing Post app and billed as our Sunday Read, a new weekly feature.

Hughes reached 100 winners for the season at Bangor on Wednesday and has a healthy lead in the race to become champion jockey over jumps for a third time. Members' Club Ultimate subscribers have access to fantastic interviews like this every week. Click here to sign up.

It is the day after the night before, or at least it should be, but it soon becomes clear the night before was no different to the one previous or the one before that.

He might have reached 150 winners in a season for the first time in his career the previous day but celebrations are on hold as far as teetotal Brian Hughes is concerned.

The Northern Irishman has been on a mission since riding a treble at Ayr on May 4 and this is not the time to sit back and admire what has turned into a record-breaking campaign. That can wait until the season finale at Sandown on April 23 and it is business as usual as the endless search for the next winner takes him to a midweek fixture at Market Rasen.

"I got home last night and my kids were waiting for me there," says Hughes, having just booted home his 151st winner of the season and with an hour and a half to spare until his next chance of a winner.

"I read them a bedtime story and then it was tea as normal and no celebrations. I try not to get too high or too low, I like to stay fairly level all the time and then you're keeping your performance the same."

Brian Hughes at home with wife Lucy, son Rory and daughter Olivia as well as his 2019-20 jump jockeys' championship trophyCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

Despite a low-key evening with his schoolteacher wife Lucy, tractor-mad son Rory and pony-fanatic daughter Olivia, reaching 150 winners for the first time in a career that started as an apprentice on the Flat with Kevin Prendergast in 2002 is something he has been itching to achieve.

"Three seasons ago I was on 146 and I got a fall and broke my jaw, so I was out for the rest of the season, and a couple of seasons before that I got a fall and broke my collarbone on 144," he remembers.

"AP rode nearly 300 winners in a season and Richard Johnson rode 200 winners a couple of times, but being based in the north it was just something small that you thought might not be achieved again. It probably will but it was something nice to do."

Hughes, who lives in the pretty village of Carlton-in-Cleveland on the edge of the North York Moors, is a man content to let his riding do the talking but by anyone's standards this has been a remarkable season for the 36-year-old. Not only has he sailed past the 150-winner mark for the first time, he has put oceans between himself and his rivals in the race to be crowned Britain's champion jump jockey.

After a treble at Uttoxeter on Saturday he leads closest pursuer Harry Skelton by 72 winners having amassed more than 700 rides in a display of relentless determination Sir Anthony McCoy would have been proud of.

Despite his dominance, he is not letting himself believe a second title is in safe keeping. We all know it is but that's probably why he's a champion jockey and we're not.

"We're only in February," says Hughes, ignoring the fact that bookmakers stopped betting on the outcome last year. "While it would probably be hard for anyone to get back, it's still mathematically possible. At the end of the day this is sport and anything can happen. It would be foolish to be thinking I've got the championship in the bag already.

"A race can change your season – for good and bad. In the last two weeks I've been lucky. I've had three falls and every time I've been trampled. One of the times ripped the backpad off my back and smashed my helmet in half. It's the sorest I've ever been. I've never stood myself down from a ride at a meeting but I rode the horse in the next and my knee and leg started to seize up and the doctor and physio thought we should give up for the rest of the day, so we had to. That's the reality of what can happen."

Brian Hughes on a work morning at Donald McCain's yard in CheshireCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

His agent Richard Hale, who has booked rides for Hughes since the jockey first came to Britain to ride as a conditional for Howard Johnson in 2005, is banking on a clear run between now and the end of the season having set his sights on 200 winners for his star player.

Were he to achieve that landmark he would be only the fourth rider in history, after McCoy, Richard Johnson and Peter Scudamore, to topple the double century in a season.

"It's something I'd love to achieve," he says. "I suppose it is possible but I like to set shorter-term goals and targets I think are achievable. If the target is so far away you only lose sight of it."

The last few years have been a whirlwind for Hughes. He secured his first title in 2020 but lost his grip on the trophy in a titanic battle with Skelton last year. He says experiencing both emotions has made him a more complete individual. It has also made him hungry for more titles.

Winning the championship for the first time clearly meant the world to him but it was under unprecedented circumstances as the season was halted with more than a month to go when the magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic first started to become apparent.

He was 20 winners clear of Johnson at the time and there is no suggestion whatsoever that he was anything less than a worthy champion, but neither Hughes nor his vast support network got to celebrate the moment he had been working for his entire life. The chance to do it properly this season makes the prospect of a second title every bit as special as the first.

"It would mean a lot to win it again," he says. "The first season I was obviously in pole position but I was also enjoying the battle. Dickie's such a gentleman and I have a lot of respect for him. It was a healthy battle.

"At the time we didn't know what Covid-19 was and then the next minute racing was suspended and it was the end of the season. Everyone was in limbo but what was happening in the outside world took over and rightly so. A lot of people were losing their lives on a daily basis and it was scary.

"At the time, my wife's grandfather was ill with leukaemia and he lived next door, so we had to be really strict. In lockdown I was driving him in and out of hospital some of the time for his check-ups and treatment, so we had to be really careful. That took over and put things into perspective for me.

"I don't really like fanfare or headlines and I like to do my job and try to ride as many winners as I can, but my mum and dad live and breathe it. My dad will never miss a race I ride in ever. My wife's family are the same, so I felt for them, because they were looking forward to it.

"If it stays the way it's going, they'll get a good kick out of it. They've put in the miles and deserve that. My sister Elaine is my accountant but she basically runs my life and has got everything booked already. I have sisters in Canada and Australia and they're booking flights."

If he was disappointed not to have the chance to slug it out with Johnson over the last month of the season in 2020, Hughes felt the full heat of battle with Skelton last season, the pair going hammer and tongs to the end to be crowned champion.

The man who came out second best describes it as a "clean battle" but it was undoubtedly tough to put everything on the line only to come up agonisingly short in what was one of the great crescendos to a jumps season. Despite that disappointment, he says he learned far more in defeat than he had in victory the previous year and it laid the foundation for the record-breaking season he is currently building.

"It was great for racing," he says of last season. "I was in front around the new year and then we missed a bit of time. You could see Harry was gaining momentum and he rode more winners, so fair play to him.

"I can't say that I loved it because I came off second best but I learned plenty. I gave it my best shot and I have no regrets. It was a great life lesson for me; I learned plenty about myself and I learned plenty about other people.

"It's made me appreciate things a bit more. A lot of people came and offered me support and that meant a lot but there was a flipside to that and in a way I'm glad it's happened.

"Donald McCain asked one day if I knew who was in my corner and I do now. That's not having a dig at anybody, that's just the way it is. Mentally for me at the time it was hard to take but I think I'm a stronger-minded person because of it."

Hughes is very much his own man but the more time you spend in his company, the more it strikes you that what makes him tick is a remarkably similar concoction to the one that kept McCoy at the top for all those years.

With his cheekbones protruding from his pale skin and piercing eyes, he even has the same look about him. He also shares his Northern Irish heritage with the 20-time champion, but the thing that really unites them is that obsession over where the next winner is coming from.

Brian Hughes: a born winnerCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

"Yesterday is gone, it's history," he says. "Last night I had a quick glance at the replays but then I was looking at tomorrow's horses. You're never looking back, only forward.

"I want to be champion jockey and ride more winners than anybody else. That's what makes me tick. I want winners no matter if they're in sellers or Grade 1s. Every winner gives me a kick and I'm always thinking of the next one. I know people like riding big winners, as do I, but I just like riding winners every day."

When it is pointed out to him that his domination of this season's championship smacks of what McCoy used to do year in, year out, Hughes comes across as uneasy.

"I'm a little bit embarrassed," he says. "I don't really want to be thinking I'm in that category. I have a lot of respect for AP and Richard Johnson. I haven't achieved a quarter of what they achieved and wouldn't feel comfortable putting myself in their bracket."

Let's come at it from another angle, then. Does he see himself running up a sequence of championships, if not quite in the same fashion as McCoy, similar to Johnson, who won four in succession before Hughes defeated him?

"My agent certainly does. I'd like to think I'd be the one to beat for the next couple of seasons but you never know what's ahead in this game. It's not been an easy place to get to but now I'm in it I'm going to do as much as I can to stay there."

There has been a sprinkling of good horses throughout his career – he won the Cleeve Hurdle on Tidal Bay in 2010, for example – but similar to the statistics that mark him out as the season's superior rider, the numbers prove that he has yet to unearth a seam of Grade 1 talent.

Waiting Patiently's win in the 2018 Ascot Chase is his sole victory at the highest level among almost 1,500 winners over jumps, and he has felt the euphoria of success at the Cheltenham Festival on only three occasions.

He has already made it clear that he gets ample reward from the volume of winners he rides but he is only human (just about) and has the same ambition as any other rider to conquer the sport's biggest prizes.

"Everyone wants to be winning the Graded races but I don't feel like I've ever left any behind me," he says. "I know people give out and say he doesn't go to Cheltenham but the reality last year was that I didn't have a ride. I had one ride booked for the whole meeting.

"I'd love to go down there for rides with good chances but all of those good yards have a lot of good jockeys to ride them. I have no divine right to any of that.

"But going down there for 100-1 shots doesn't make me tick. I'd love to be winning the Grand National and Gold Cup but you need a good horse."

There has definitely been more quality to go with the quantity since Hughes became first-choice rider to Donald McCain four seasons ago. The most powerful trainer in the north has been a key ingredient in the rider's success and vice versa.

Dream team: Brian Hughes with his agent Richard Hale (left) and trainer Donald McCainCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

The man who trained Ballabriggs to win the Grand National in 2011 and nurtured Grade 1 Cheltenham Festival winners Peddlers Cross and Cinders And Ashes through a golden period has been gradually rebuilding his squad and is now at the stage where he has assembled a huge team of horses packed with emerging talent for his stable jockey to ride. There has to be a strong possibility a genuine Grade 1 horse will soon come around.

"Donald trained a Grand National winner and was training a good number of winners a long time before I started riding for him," the rider is quick to point out. "It was well documented that Donald lost a large number of horses several years ago when a major owner pulled out. He's slowly been rebuilding his team and I started to get a couple of rides for him.

"Donald and I have had to adjust – we've both had to give and take a bit – but I think now I know what he expects and he knows the way I ride.

"I remember when Donald first asked me to be part of the team. I said what we needed to establish was trust. I said if he wasn't happy, he should tell me and not let it fester for days and days and vice versa. We have that sort of respect and if he has an issue he tells me straight away. Then it's dealt with and we can move on. He's a decent human being and we've always got on well."

Hughes accepts that once again he is more likely to be at Sedgefield and Doncaster than Cheltenham come festival week in March but there should be plenty to look forward to at Aintree in April.

"As sad as it sounds, there's genuinely not one horse that I know I've got the ride on at Cheltenham," he says. "Where Donald's yard is, owners like going to Aintree and I could tell you a good handful that are going there. Sooner rather than later we'll hopefully unearth one of those good horses."

On the cusp of a second championship and with genuine hope a good horse or two will not be far behind, there is plenty for Hughes to be positive about. Yet, if truth be told, the main thing occupying his mind is where the next winner is coming from. That's the mindset of a champion.

Brian Hughes was crowned champion jockey for the second time in April, having ridden 204 winners during the 2021-22 jumps campaign

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