If ever a trainer looked destined to achieve success then Dan Skelton would be odds-on favourite.
The son of Olympic gold medal winner Nick Skelton, who has been at the top of the showjumping world for decades, Skelton has been around horses all his life.
His training career was founded upon both that equine-immersed upbringing and a nine-year association with Paul Nicholls and his team at Ditcheat.
As of 2024, Skelton has trained ten Cheltenham winners, which include three Grade One races.
Ambitious, articulate, affable and with so much equine nous, it was no surprise when, in 2013, Skelton left Ditcheat with the blessing of Nicholls to pursue his own career as a trainer.
In a relatively short time that has proved to be a masterstroke as, from his Warwickshire base, he has gone on to bite the hand of the man that once fed him and plenty of others besides.
Hitting the century mark for winners trained in a season for the first time in the 2015-16 campaign, he has now achieved that feat on six successive occasions.
By far and away his best to date was the astonishing 205 he sent out to win in the 2018/19 season, when his string amassed a total of £2,301,457 in prize money. He was only the second trainer, after that great record breaker Martin Pipe, to have achieved such a feat.
It is no surprise that such stats saw the Alcester-based handler reach 1,000 winners in very quick time, celebrating the feat in just his ninth season when Faivoir triumphed in the Windsor Horse Rangers Novices' Limited Handicap Chase at Ascot in November 2021.
Although Skelton has yet to find a major champion of his own within the yard, it seems a matter of when, not if, he will achieve such success in his own right.
He already has ten Cheltenham Festival winners to his name, four of them in the County Hurdle (Superb Story, 2016; Mohaayed, 2018, Ch'tibello, 2019 and Faivoir, 2023).
Skelton landed his first Cheltenham Grade 1 in 2019 in the Mares' Hurdle with Roksana.
But it was the 2024 Cheltenham Festival where Skelton made a dent in the Willie Mullins procession. He scored with a career-best four winners including Grey Dawning in the Turners Novices' Chase and Protektorat in the Ryanair Chase.
Dan's partnership with younger brother and now top jockey Harry Skelton, who passed his own 1,000 winner landmark a month earlier than his sibling, looks set to blossom and flourish in the years ahead.
Captain Teague claimed a walkover win in the ICL Conscious Of Our Impact ‘Future Stars’ Silver Bowl Novices’ Chase at Exeter after his two declared rivals pulled out because of the ground.
There’s some cracking National Hunt racing to enjoy at Aintree on Sunday afternoon, and this two-and-a-half-mile handicap hurdle offers betting options from all over the betting market.
On a quiet Sunday at the races, Uttoxeter offers the only meeting on English soil with a decent National Hunt card, from which one of Tipstrr’s pundits has shared his best bet of the day.
We know the jumps season is properly under way when Sedgefield racecourse opens its gates, and this competitive two-mile chase should give National Hunt fans plenty of food for thought.
Our good friends at Tipstrr have been peering through Sunday afternoon's racecards and have been attracted to this competitive handicap hurdle.
This week's selection from trends analyst Andrew of Fiosrach is heading a little off-piste this week with a summer jumps race from one of the biggest days on Market Rasen’s National Hunt calendar.
Rural Staffordshire provides an idyllic backdrop for Uttoxeter’s National Hunt card on Tuesday evening, but the ten runners and riders in this two-mile hurdle won’t have much time to admire the view.
