Brian Hughes may be outside the top 20 in his bid to pick up the £500,000 top prize for the leading jockey in the inaugural David Power Jockeys’ Cup, but he is more than happy with where he is currently at in a long and distinguished career.
The County Armagh rider began his career with James Lambe – and is one of a select few to have ridden a Flat winner, hurdle winner and a chase winner at Downpatrick – but moved over to ride for Howard Johnson after the trainer saw him riding a winner for Jim Bolger.
Hughes told Sporting Life in the fourth of their David Power Jockeys’ Cup podcast series: "I wasn’t strong enough, light enough or good enough to ride on the Flat, my weight always held me back so I was always dieting but then that makes you weak.
“You were trying to do a light weight but then you weren’t strong enough to give the horse a good ride.
“I starved myself for three days for a ride for Jim Bolger - and luckily won on the filly - and Howard Johnson was there and he saw it.
“Graham and Andrea Wylie had bought a load of yearlings and I had helped break them in. That was how that all came about.”
Despite a mishap on his first British ride - ‘Silver Dollars headbutted me in a bumper at Sedgefield so I had blood pouring down my face during the race’ - Hughes has since proven himself as one of the most successful jockeys in the weighing room, riding his 1,000th winner over jumps in Britain and Ireland on My Old Gold at Wetherby in January 2019.
Though he hinted otherwise in a 2023 interview, the now-40-year-old - who is fast approaching 1,900 winners - is not imminently considering life after the saddle, despite a lack of big-race rides at the Cheltenham Festival.
He said: “I haven’t thought about retiring – I don’t think I'm doing the job too badly – and I’m feeling well in myself. I’ll keep going for a couple of seasons yet!
“I just haven’t really had the opportunities to ride the real big winners at Cheltenham - I’ve had a lot of stick over the years.
“You’re riding horses that have only just scraped in there and they haven’t got a real chance. Sometimes it can be a horrible experience when you’re not going there with fancied rides."
However, Hughes has ridden three handicap winners at the Cheltenham Festival – Hawk High (2014), Ballyalton (2016) and Mister Whitaker (2018) - and had dreams of causing a major upset in the 2020 Cheltenham Gold Cup when the 50/1 chance Real Steel moved menacingly into contention.
Hughes, who takes the ride on The Real Whacker whom he partnered to Charlie Hall success in this year’s renewal, remembered: “I was thinking ‘someone like me is never going to win a Gold Cup’ when I came there on the bridle on Real Steel but he just didn’t stay, he emptied out very quickly.
“The Real Whacker is a real good ride for me to pick up - he’s won a few times around Cheltenham and it’s nice to be associated with a horse that’s good enough to run in these sorts of races.”
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