From the start of this season his determination to remain number one, a position wrestled from Richard Johnson, was obvious.
Although Hughes had to wait until more than a week after the delayed restart for his first winner when Jamacho, trained by Charlie Longsdon, won easily at Stratford, he soon made his intentions clear.
A Cartmel treble was swiftly followed by a fantastic four‐timer at Bangor towards the end of July. Five of those seven winners were trained by Donald McCain and they helped Hughes end the month with 12 winners in the bag – twice as many as Harry Skelton.
August was almost as fruitful with 11 winners added to his tally to put plenty of daylight between himself and his rivals.