'I always feel I've stuff to prove' - a day with Brian Hughes and Harry Skelton

Harry Skelton gets to Cheltenham first. What really matters is who holds sway when he and Brian Hughes leave Sandown.

It is the tightest of tussles. Hughes, the sport's reigning champion jump jockey, started Tuesday at Southwell with a single-winner lead over Skelton. He ended the day two winners behind. For the first time in this absorbing duel, the challenger arrives at a racecourse in front. With only a handful of the season's days still to be played out, he is also on what should be more naturally his stomping ground.

As Skelton enters Cheltenham's temporary jockeys' changing room, Hughes is in the closing stages of the journey from his North Yorkshire home. He has one championship trophy to his name but wants another. More than that, he believes he needs another. Still awaiting him is a tour of happy playgrounds. There are two days at Ayr, afternoons at Bangor, Hexham and Sedgefield, plus three consecutive shifts at Perth before the Sandown finale next Saturday. The cock of the north has many days in the north to exploit. This is not one of them.