Agony and ecstasy in Tucker's moment of Cheltenham Festival glory

Suddenly the question seems a bit daft. "Yes, of course it hurts. It really hurts," says Harriet Tucker. It's a dislocated shoulder after all, which must be bad enough at the best of times, let alone when you're trying to ride the winner of a big steeplechase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Since the first time Tucker popped out the offending joint in a point-to-point two years ago, it has threatened, and occasionally managed, to pop out again. To be strictly accurate it's a half-dislocated shoulder, but it isn't half a problem when it happens and it certainly picks its moments.

"It's come out a couple of times race riding but it had got a lot stronger and hadn't come out at all this season, until the biggest race ever," says the teak-tough 22-year-old, recalling the moment approaching the second-last fence in last Friday's St James's Place Foxhunter Chase, when she raised her arm too high for comfort and her ability to drive her ultra-game mount Pacha Du Polder up the Cheltenham hill was sorely compromised by an untimely repeat.