Flow is an intrinsically fulfilling psychological state accompanied by a heightened sense of consciousness and the unification of body and mind that results in enjoyable and effortless performance experiences.

- Jackson & Csikszentmihalyi

IF IT was a soccer crowd, they’d be chanting “Are you AP in disguise?” Because there is no other way to describe the truly sensational run of form Brian Hughes is experiencing right now.

Speaking to the Armagh man on Wednesday evening, as he drove home from Wetherby where he had two winners and three seconds, you were almost tempted to scoff ‘Only two?’

The previous day, Hughes had booted home four winners at Sedgefield. Last Monday week, it was a five-timer and two seconds at Musselburgh and a treble at the Saturday before that.

Consider this. By the end of September, with many of his steeds in need of a run, the 31-year-old had only accumulated 20 winners. After an October that included a four-timer in Carlisle and yielded 17 runners at a 25% strike-rate, he took it to another level again this month.

Before racing yesterday, November had yielded 29 winners at a strike-rate of 33% and a phenomenal 450% return for anyone prescient enough to have a wager on each of his 89 rides. He was scheduled to have another go at going through the card at Musselburgh on Thursday but the meeting was abandoned. Right now, that looks like the only way of slowing him down.

Of course Hughes knows better. He has long had a reputation for being a grounded grafter, even as he has exceeded the century of victories in the last two seasons on the way to top-five finishes in the jockeys’ championship. That can be attributed to an apprenticeship under Kevin Prendergast, because he wasn’t short of swagger when he was sent there initially by RACE.

WORK ETHIC

There was no Hollywood when he left though. Just work ethic that has seen him claw his way up the rankings. That his 103 winners last season came from 40 trainers tells you a lot.

He is also mates with Freddy Tylicki, from the days when they were kids starting out together around the Curragh with Shane Gorey, Chris Geoghegan, Billy Lee and a few others.

Later on, Tylicki was an apprentice at Richard Fahey’s as Hughes rode work and schooled there. When Tylicki was paralysed following a fall at Kempton, it was a reminder not to take anything for granted.

“You can never get too ahead of yourself in this game. You just have to look at Freddy Tylicki, who’s a good friend of mine. A good lad, a great rider, riding Group 1 winners in France and he has a terrible fall in Kempton and his whole world spins around in a heartbeat. That’s the reality of racing so you’ve just got to be very thankful and appreciate all the good times because there are a lot more bad times than good. I’ve just been having every bit of luck now really.

“A lot of the younger lads, when they ride a few winners they think they’ve it made. But as a jump jockey, the ambulance is following you and you know you’re going to end up in the back of one of them.

“It might be your mate one day, it might be you. You’ve got to keep your feet on the ground.”

Trish Jackman is best known as an All-Ireland-winning camogie player with Waterford who won seven Poc Fada titles in a row before injury ruled her out of this year’s event.

It just so happens that Jackman is a very clever lady, who as part of her pursuit of a Masters in Science, combined those brains with her passion for racing and did a dissertation entitled An Exploration of Flow Experiences in Professional Jump Jockeys.

A 175-page document can’t be summarised in a few lines but the study attempted to explore the conditions influencing the occurrence of flow, the characteristics of flow and the connections between the conditions and characteristics of flow in jump jockeys. It is an interesting read.

Some of it clearly applies to Hughes though he insists he isn’t doing anything differently. There is no doubt that his confidence is at an all-time high however and crucially, he is not falling into the trap of analysing the current phenomenon. The mind isn’t overactive. He climbs aboard and it’s him and the horse.

CONFIDENCE

“I don’t think I’ve changed my riding in any way. I’m riding with bags of confidence but I didn’t wake up the first of November a different rider. The horses I’m riding are in great form, I’m having a lot of luck, my agent is doing a good job, the trainers are doing a great job and so are the stable staff, who ride these horses every day.

“Going back years ago when I first came to England, Graham Lee would have been someone I watched a lot and he would always have been a confident sort of rider in the fact that he had patience on his horses and produced them. I always thought I’d like to ride like him because he made very few mistakes. It just goes to show when you see how good he is on the flat now.

“One thing I always took from Graham’s riding was he always had horses going in a lovely, smooth rhythm and that’s what I try to do. Keep them jumping nicely, not standing off, neat and tidy. I just try and ride that sort of race, whether the trainer tells me to make the running or drop in… a nice, smooth, even rhythm.

“When you’re riding with confidence things seem to happen because you’re being patient with your horses. I try not to overthink it really. I just go out and ride the horse with the feel he gives me. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Malcolm Jefferson is his largest supporter but he only has 48 horses. Charlie Longsdon, Dave Dennis and Ian Williams are others who call on his services. Richard Hale is the agent who has been getting him on the right horses and Hughes hails not just his judgement, but his contribution to making him an unrecognisable rider since they joined forces once he arrived in England in 2005.

“There have been one or two where I asked ‘Are you crazy?’ and he’s been proved right. There was one in Ascot two weeks ago and I genuinely asked him ‘It’s a novice chase. Do we really need to be riding this one? No form, first time over fences.’

“‘He said ‘Trust me, this is a good one’ and it bolted up by 20 lengths. It had never won a race, been second once over hurdles. He’s just an unbelievable judge really. He’s obviously getting me on the right ones.

“I had a lot of bad habits when I came over first and Richard helped me immensely all the way through. Even now, if I’ve given one a bad ride, I’d know myself but he’d be the first to tell me. I’d be very self-critical but Richard is critical as well and you need that to improve.

“There’s no point having someone as an agent blowing smoke up your hole and saying how great you are. You won’t ever improve then. Richard has always been there to help me along, when I messed up on horses or was riding too short or with the stick or whatever. He helped me even out a lot of things.”

For his part, Hale notes that he has had a few clients who emerged from the Prendergast academy. To a man and woman, they have been professionals.

“I probably learned more there than anywhere else,” Hughes agrees. “Old school values. Everything had to be done right. You know yourself, you’re a young lad who thinks he knows everything. You think you invented racing.

“There were good lads at Kevin’s and it put manners on me. They wouldn’t be shy of grabbing a hold of you and rightly so. You were an apprentice and you were made to work hard.

“To be fair to Kevin, I wasn’t as good as the other kids. I was tall and watching my weight, was weaker. I grafted hard and worked away. I’d a winner my first season for Kevin, Perugino Lady at Downpatrick (in 2002). Then I had a few more winners the next year. Then I got a fall at Gowran Park and broke my elbow and wrist. I was out for two months. As a young lad, you think that’s the end of the world. You were just getting a couple of rides and this happens.

“When I came back, Kevin gave me the ride on Miss Trish in a big handicap in Galway, which was huge for a 10lb claimer, on RTÉ and everything. The year before I was leading up in Galway and delighted to be doing it.

“I gave this filly the worst ride you’ve ever seen. She was slowly away, I got her knocked down everywhere and she won pulling a cart. I was meant to be handy away and she was slowly away. I ended up tucked in and nearly knocked down half the field to get out and she sluiced in. That was Kevin doing me a massive favour.

“To go and ride a winner in Galway as a 10lb claimer, you couldn’t buy that. If you worked hard, he was very fair with you.

“And he’s a very good trainer. Probably one of the best trainers I’ve ever ridden for. His horses never lack for fitness, they never lack for condition and they always look a million dollars.

“When I was leading up, before I got a licence, you’d go to the Curragh on a Sunday and you’d have four best turned out.”

It was “brilliant” to renew the partnership and win the Boylesports Hurdle at Leopardstown in January 2015 and fantastic to see the old master win the 2000 Guineas with Awtaad this summer.

“He’s doing that on a small budget. He’s not getting in millions of pounds worth of horses. He maximises what he has. He’ll buy a 10-grand horse and it might not have the best pedigree but it’ll be a great model of a horse, a great looker and a great walker.”

In the Friarstown days, Kevin O’Ryan was his agent. He met O’Ryan through his brother Aidan, or Mouse as he was known and quickly became an extended member of the clan.

The O’Ryans’ father, renowned bloodstock agent Bobby, got him a job at Howard Johnson’s and arranged for him to ride out at Richard Fahey’s, where his first cousin Robin had just joined as assistant. And Robin’s brother Tom, himself a former top jockey before becoming a respected TV and written journalist, as well as mentor to many northern-based young jockeys, looked after him.

“I have a lot to thank all the O’Ryan family for. I wasn’t born into racing. They have looked after me from day one. I wasn’t particularly good at flat racing. I was too tall and weak, because I was struggling with the weight. Frankly, I wasn’t good enough. Kevin did what he could, he even got me a winner for Jim Bolger.

“Bobby got me sorted out with the job, and got me riding out at Richard Fahey’s through Robin and Tom. I was riding out some nice horses, rated 80 and 90 on the flat, a 5lb claimer that I probably shouldn’t have been getting on but they were winning. I won my first ever listed race for Richard Fahey. I won a Grade 3 Swinton Hurdle for Richard Fahey. That was all through the O’Ryan connection. Anybody would have won on those horses but I was lucky enough to get the chance through Tom, Robin, Bobby, (Bobby’s wife) Sheila, Kevin and Mouse. I still ride for Richard Fahey to this day.”

Tom passed away during the summer after and it will be more than Hughes who will miss him, the feedback, the ‘talking up’ on Racing UK, the features to keep the profile up.

“He did it for every young jockey trying to get on. He’d always try to help you out. I will never, ever be able to repay Tom now, not to mind any of the O’Ryan family for what they’ve done for me. I was a nobody and they invested a lot of time… they put their neck on the line for me. I will be forever grateful to every one of them.”

You need whatever you can get when based in the north. In an interview appearing in the soon-to-be-released Irish Racing Yearbook 2017, Fahey jokes that he thinks some owners believe there are polar bears outside his door.

UPPER ECHELONS

The fact that Hughes, a former champion conditional who has won 10 graded races, including seven Grade 2s, and enjoyed success at the Cheltenham Festival and over the National fences at Aintree in the Topham Chase, has climbed to the upper echelons of his profession completely unheralded until the past couple of weeks, bears testament to an inexplicable geographical bias.

“I remember five or six years ago, there was a big handicap hurdle at Haydock. I’d been champion conditional, had ridden a few winners. There was a good horse in it so the weights were very low, with a lot of horses on 10 stone.

“I asked the agent if he’d try get me on one of them, because you’d love to be in a big race on a Saturday.

“He said he’d try and then he said ‘To be honest with you Brian, nobody knows who you are.’ Not that they should or anything but I just thought ‘Bloody hell, these people must not even watch northern racing.’ I suppose Richard Fahey summed it up fairly well.”

He has some nice horses to look forward to, that might bring him to more southern tracks on a Saturday. Cloudy Dream, Oscar Rock, Double W’s and Seeyouatmidnight were relatively cheap purchases but they are all moving in the right direction.

A line can be drawn through the latter’s flat effort in the Befair Chase, the pilot insists, the effort in trouncing Bristol De Mai 19 days early clearly leaving its toll.

“You’ve heard the old saying, good horses make good jockeys and it’s the same for trainers. I’ve never won a Grade 1. I’ve had a few Grade 2s and ridden a few nice horses. A good horse would do wonders for any jockey’s career. It’s just the way it’s been.”

He won’t dwell on it, just do what he’s always done.

He’ll go with the flow.