Brian Hughes was crowned Champion Jockey on bet365 Jump Finale day at Sandown Park – two years after COVID forced him to receive the trophy at home.
The 36-year-old won his first title in the 2019/20 campaign and on Wednesday this week reached the milestone of 200 winners for the season – a feat only previously achieved by Peter Scudamore, Sir AP McCoy and Richard Johnson. This time around Hughes has taken the title by a distance – to secure the championship for a second time.
Reflecting on reaching the milestone and being almost 100 winners clear of his closest challenger, Sam Twiston-Davies, Hughes said: “It was a target we thought was achievable in February when I got to the 150 mark and I am just delighted I finally got there. AP and Peter Scudamore were at Perth and Dicky kindly gave me a call after racing – I remember Dicky (Richard Johnson) getting to 200 winners at Perth a few years back. He is such a gentleman and reminded me to enjoy it to make sure I knew what the achievement meant.
“As a jockey, you are always looking forward. What happened at Perth on Wednesday is gone and it is always about today, so Dicky said, ‘Take a minute, sit back and enjoy what you’ve done because it’s hard to achieve again’. He also said to enjoy Sandown as he got a great kick out of it when he was crowned champion jockey.
“Obviously, you need a lot of things to go in your favour – you need to stay injury free, have no suspensions and be getting on the right horses consistently. The weather has also played a big part this season as we didn’t miss a lot of racing. But most importantly the horses you are riding need to be in top form throughout the season.
“All my ducks have been in a row this season and enabled me to get to this number of winners. It doesn’t seem real to have done it in one season. I’ve had a good share of luck for everything to happen the right way.
“It hasn’t been easy. It has been hard work but essentially doing a job that is like a hobby. The driving is probably the thing that gets me the most as I detest driving! But riding horses, while not easy, is the enjoyable part of it.
“I do some of the driving myself and I have a couple of mates who both have full-time jobs who when they are available they give me a bit of a hand. I have done 70,000-80,000 miles this season – the car gets serviced every 10,000 miles and it is booked in for its seventh or eighth service next Monday.”
Champion full of praise for McCain
Hughes was keen to pay tribute to his biggest supporter, trainer Donald McCain, who himself has recorded a seasonal best tally of 155 winners so far.
The champion Jump jockey continued: “Donald’s is an incredibly smooth operation. First and foremost, Donald buys all his own horses and has bought the right types of horses that he can train and place to win races. The owners have also invested their money.
“There are a great team of lads and lasses in the yard that work with the horses on a daily basis – a lot of hard work goes into getting the horses to the races. There a lot of people that have a part to play at Cholmondeley and that is evidenced with the number of winners we’ve had. It’s a hugely successful team.
“I try and get over there as much as I can, particularly in the early part of the season when you could be schooling 70 or 80 horses on one morning with 11 or 12 of us schooling.”
Hughes is based in Teeside and was keen to point out that Jump racing in the North is holding its own, despite the sport’s biggest stables being based in the South.
He added: “The North is full of good trainers and owners I believe. That’s not talking down their Southern counterparts and years ago the North was the powerhouse of Jump racing and you could name five or six big trainers that were based there. A northern-based jockey was always going to break through again and I’m just delighted it is me. A lot of people have offered me support and rung my agent (Richard Hale) asking if I need anything to ride, so that has been very kind of them.
“I am not an emotional person as my wife will verify but I was a bit taken aback and stunned yesterday when I went into the winner’s enclosure yesterday and all the jockeys, valets and so many other people came to greet me in – it was a nice touch and I appreciate it. A lot of racegoers, owners and other trainers wished me well, which is a nice touch.”
Focus key to title success
Drive is certainly a necessity for anyone who wants to rise to the top of their chosen profession and that is certainly something that Hughes has in abundance.
He said: “My ambition is to be champion jockey, that’s all I ever wanted to be. You need to ride winners consistently and that is always the main aim. I think my parents will vouch that I took a bit of steering as a child – my mind was always set on doing something and I was very stubborn.
“When you set out as a jockey, you want to be a champion and that has always been my single-minded goal. I think it’s something you are born with, really. School wasn’t my priority and I preferred to be riding so racing gave me some direction in my life – I’ve put my head down as that was the only thing I ever wanted to do. I had to make it work as I’m not qualified to do anything else!”
“You want to be at the big meetings like Aintree and Cheltenham if you can but I think too much has been made of it really – I didn’t swerve them on purpose, I just didn’t have any rides that I felt were competitive. Donald is always reinvesting in new stock and hopefully in years to come he will find another Peddlers Cross, Overturn or Ballabriggs might appear before too long.
“Being from the north of Ireland, AP McCoy, Richard Dunwoody and Tony Dobbin were the three jockeys when I was growing up that you knew came from Northern Ireland. AP is obviously a household name and a decent, genuine fella. I got on well with him when he rode.
“Peter Scudamore is obviously racing a lot in the North with his attachment to Lucinda Russell. They are men who achieved far more than I ever will achieve and Joe Public knows the name Scudamore or McCoy, so I was incredibly humbled that they were there yesterday and said nice things about me in the Press.”
Hughes’ first title was gained during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic but this time he will have the majority of his family joining him at Sandown Park for what should be a very memorable day.
He said: “A team of people from home in County Armagh will be coming over on Saturday as well as a team from Yorkshire. Funnily enough, I’m actually one of the quiet ones in my family and Sandown doesn’t know what it is in for! I have five sisters – I am third in the reckoning. My eldest sister Karen and she is coming over from Canada. My next sister Elaine is based in Ireland and between her and my wife Lucy – they sort everything for me and a massive part of my success. Kathleen, the next sister below me is coming over from Melbourne and her husband Mark are also coming over.
“My other sister Jennifer and her husband will also be there. I am not sure if my youngest sister Stephanie will be coming – we have a mare heavily in foal and I am not sure if her or my dad has drawn the short straw to stay behind.
Sacrifices made along he way
“I’ve had to sacrifice a lot over the years to get to this position. I wasn’t at Karen’s wedding at all and I missed most of Kathleen’s wedding which they sucked up and accepted so this will be some payback for them. They will get a good kick out of it and so they should.
“My son Rory is nearly five and sort of gets what is happening. Olivia my daughter is three and doesn’t really get it but she watches the races and is pony mad. The two of them have their own ponies but she is the one I think most likely to follow in my footsteps. Rory is into machinery and tractors!
“Nobody likes to fail and last season I felt I had failed which was a horrible feeling. It was nothing to do with Harry Skelton – he beat me and we get on very well. It’s just no different from a football team getting beaten in the FA Cup final or something – you are going to feel gutted.
“I got my head down this year and didn’t want that to happen again. I tried and worked as hard as I could to get to this position. You are always looking forward and yesterday is history so my mentality is about the next race. I’ll have a week off after Sandown and am going away for three days, but when the entries come out for Hexham next money I’ll be looking at them – I can’t help it.
“When I won my last championship, the season ended early because of COVID. I don’t think any of us knew what COVID was at the time. There was a lot going on in the world. People were losing their lives on a daily basis.
“Then last year I lost out and this year I’ve won it back by a considerable margin and got to 200 winners, so this is the one that means the most. A few journalists wrote that I only won in 2019/20 as the season ended early, so I was always eager to prove them wrong.
“From the start of this season, the goal was to be champion jockey again. The 200 winners only came into the reckoning from February and while it’s a massive achievement, for me to be champion jockey is everything.”
