Brian Hughes surging towards 200 winners
- Tom Reed
- 21 March 2022
Champion Jockey elect Brian Hughes is surging towards 200 winners and could join the select group of riders that have hit a double tonne in a season which includes Sir Anthony McCoy.
Leading Northern jockey Brian Hughes showed he was right to swerve the Cheltenham Festival and concentrate on racking up the winners as he heads towards 200 for the season.
The 2019-20 Champion jump jockey teamed up with Donald McCain at Carlisle to take his tally for the season to 184, having recently become the first northern-based jockey to ever ride 150 winners in a campaign.
Forpaddytheplumber (3-1) got the winning combination off to a great start with victory in the near two-and-a-half-mile maiden hurdle.
Geromino (6-4) then beat his two rivals to take the two-mile novice handicap chase, with Malpas (evens favourite) doing the same in the novices' handicap hurdle over two miles and one furlong.
Killane (9-2 co-favourite) assured a 100 per cent record on the day for McCain when landing the handicap hurdle over the same trip in the hands of Danny McMenamin.
Should Hughes reach the sought after double century, he will join Sir Anthony McCoy, Richard Johnson and Peter Scudamore as the only jockeys to have recorded 200 winners in a season over jumps.
Hughes has six rides at Wetherby on Tuesday to add to his tally.
