Dan Skelton has claimed 100 winners in record time this season and is now turning to his autumn and winter horses to keep the momentum going.
Skelton was crowned champion jumps trainer for the first time in April after agonisingly missing out to Willie Mullins the year before and now has his sights on breaking Martin Pipe's record number of winners in a single season set in the 1999-2000 campaign.
Skelton ticked onto 101 winners since the new term began with victories at Worcester and Southwell earlier this week and he's now preparing the likes of 156-rated Kabral Du Mathan for his comeback run as some of the star names gear up to pick up the baton from the summer squad.
“We’re definitely on track for Martin Pipe’s record," Skelton said on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast. “I said the 300 is a possibility rather than our main target, our target is to try and beat Martin’s record – 243 – so based on what I hoped for through the early part of the season, we’re on track.
“It’s the fastest hundred in the UK over jumps, we beat our own record which was set on the 26th of October before, so we’re two weeks ahead of that which is pretty cool.
“It’s been an amazing run of things with the summer horses doing well and maintaining their form for as long as they have. They’ve all shot up the handicap and completed their tasks the best they can – and they’ve probably exceeded expectations as a group to be honest.
“Over to the autumn [horses] now. I suppose the ground is hanging around a little bit for those summer ones to have the odd go into October that we didn’t think they’d have, but really now it’s over to the autumn/winter team."
Skelton admits that a number of horses running his name over the past few months will now struggle to compete off inflated ratings, with some being found new homes to continue their careers elsewhere.
“A lot of them [summer runners] are going to have a break, a few have shot up the handicap and are a little bit older. A few of them have gone point-to-pointing for the season, some of them have been retired – all sorts of little jobs for them to be honest.
“A lot of them have found lovely homes to do that [go point-to-pointing].
“A new of the novice hurdlers can go chasing, the likes of Loriko and Playful Fox – they’ve done quite well over hurdles and they can go chasing in the springtime. So there’s a little bit for them to step into but those horses who have been running in handicap chases are the ones who have gone into hunter chase and point-to-point homes.
“We’ve managed them as best we can."
Kabral Du Mathan, formerly trained by Paul Nicholls, won two of his three starts for the Skelton yard last season and was last seen finishing fourth in the Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.
He's declared for Thursday's Download The Free Racing TV App Now Beginners' Chase over two miles, but the trainer is expecting all of his winter horses to be sharper for an outing.
“Kabral Du Mathan is going for a beginners’ chase tomorrow with a bit to work on," he said.
"These extra meetings, Worcester and at Perth, where the ground is a bit slower, we’ve put a few horses in there but they’re not heavily galloped and we’ve just taken the view that we’ve got to get them out."
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