A few days before the season finale at Sandown on Saturday, Dan Skelton has all but given up the title of Britain's top trainer.
After an incredible four wins at the Cheltenham Festival last month, the Alcester handler looked to be in the box seat which put him ahead of his former boss and mentor Paul Nicholls. As the campaign nears its conclusion, he still leads the fourteen-time champion.
However, Skelton was displaced from the top spot after Willie Mullins saddled I Am Maximus to win the Grand National at Aintree, and following a four-timer at Ayr seven days later, including the Scottish National success of Macdermott, the master of Closutton now almost certain to become the first Irish-based trainer to land the British title since Vincent O’Brien did so twice in the 1950s.
Following a Thursday treble at Warwick courtesy of Take No Chances (13-8 favourite), Ace Of Spades (9-4 favourite), and Jafimgoso (7-1), and with players like Langer Dan, Nube Negra, and Le Milos on his final day team, Skelton is still mathematically in with a chance to win the title, but he believes he has already been defeated.
“As regards the trainers’ championship, to be quite honest with you, it’s over!” Skelton told Racing TV. “I can’t beat Willie, it would require our horses to win nearly every race they’re entered in on Saturday and him to have no prize-money at all. I can’t concede, because conceding means you walk off the pitch and we’re not walking off the pitch, we’re going to go down there Saturday, hopefully, we’ve got some lovely chances and it’s great to run some nice horses. The reality of beating Willie is, it’s not reality, I’m afraid, but it’s been an absolute pleasure to have contested it.”
Skelton was eager to give credit to Mullins and his group, adding: “I think we have been beaten by somebody who is doing so well at the moment and all of the aces landed up for him. He’s won the Champion Hurdle, the Gold Cup and the Grand National all in the same year and when he needed to, he won the Scottish National by a head, so it feels like sometimes it’s meant to be. It’s been a pleasure and those two trainers (Mullins and Nicholls) will be no prouder than I am of my team – horses, owners, staff – it’s been a remarkable year. Hopefully, we can get through £3 million in prize-money. That’s only ever been done once by Nicky (Henderson) and six times by Paul before. I’m proud of what we’ve done and I’ll enjoy Saturday. I’m not going down there with any pressure, I know the reality of the situation. I thank everybody – the media, owners and staff – who have built it up to be exciting, but I’m afraid that while the last day is going to be great for the sport, as regards the destination of that trophy, it feels like it’s won.”
Even though Skelton believes this opportunity has passed, he is already making plans for the upcoming season and is still as committed as ever to pursuing his dream of winning in the future.
He said: “Really, this year it only came about when Protektorat won the Ryanair. Before then, I suppose there was a moment in January when I was only 70 or 80 grand behind Paul and I thought ‘this could be interesting’. And then Paul got on a real run and went 200 to 300 clear, so it was gone from my mind until Protektorat won. And then of course, it’s just been an honour to be involved in the battle with those two, but nothing will ever quell my enthusiasm to try and be champion trainer, everyone knows I want to try and do it. We’ve been very sensible with what we’ve run over the last week and we’re very sensible about what we’re running on Saturday, we can’t lose sight of that, we have to run the appropriate horses. Then we’ve got some to run through May and June, we’ll see how that goes, but I didn’t expect to be this close this year, so it came as a bit of a surprise. So, I’ve learned an awful lot from it and hopefully, I can put those lessons to good use in the future and we’ll give it another go.”