Paul Nicholls has acknowledged that he has sympathy for Dan Skelton should Willie Mullins defeat the two and go on to win the title of champion trainer, as seems likely.
While Skelton is going for his first crown, Nicholls needs one more title to tie Martin Pipe on 15.
But with one week remaining, Mullins has nearly £180,000 in cushion after winning the Scottish version of Grand National with Macdermott and the Grand National at Aintree with I Am Maximus.
Nicholls told Betfair: “All credit to him, he’s got a big team of people and horses, particularly horses, and it’s become a bit of a numbers game. The numbers they can produce to run across the board are immense really. It’s a job to compete with that. I remember back in the years I had all those good ones and you’d win the trainers’ championship just by winning those big races. The last few years, it has just been about getting the best out of your team. Now it’s very difficult. If you win all those big races, like Champion Hurdles and Gold Cups and Grand Nationals, you are going to be a champion trainer with a small number of runners. It’s not going to get any easier with the number of horses and the class of horses they have at their disposal. It’s an amazing feat to do but with the ammunition they’ve got, and the numbers, we’re up against it.”
Nicholls added: “I feel a bit for Dan because he said to me on Saturday that he thought the first time he’d beat me in the trainers’ championship, he’d be champion – well he hasn’t yet, because we’ve got Saturday and I’m not too far behind him, so I’m not going to let him rest on his laurels – but in a normal year, he’d be champion trainer. He could end up finishing second having beaten me and I know he’s mortified, but he’s had a good season and he’ll get his chance another day.”