Harry Skelton: 'It hurt - but you've got to take your beatings and carry on'

There have been times in his career when Harry Skelton might have been forgiven for giving up the jockeys' championship as a bad job.

There was the time when, after a promising few seasons as a conditional, he slumped to a paltry eight winners – that's in a season, not a week – and found himself staring into the abyss of anonymity.

Then, when he'd pulled himself up by his bootstraps and established himself as a live outsider for the title, along came the sage advice from multiple sources that he'd never be champion jockey as long as he rode only for his brother Dan, no matter how secure a living such exclusivity gave him.