Timeform’s John Ingles charts Harry Skelton’s rise to champion jockey on the day the rider collected his trophy at Sandown.
"A win like this can only help my career but in this game you are never at the top, the bar keeps on rising. You only need to look at Tony McCoy, he’s at the top of his game but he’s always trying to improve."
The 19-year-old conditional Harry Skelton was speaking after becoming the youngest jockey to win the Irish Grand National (‘it’s probably the greatest achievement of my life so far’) when successful in 2009 on the Bob Buckler-trained 33/1-shot Niche Market. The partnership had won the Silver Cup Handicap Chase at Ascot at the same odds earlier in the season.
Twelve years later, having twenty-times champion McCoy as his inspiration has paid off as Skelton has become champion jockey himself for the first time, though he won’t be content to stop there judging from his words at Fairyhouse all those years earlier.
Skelton’s first win had come on Temper Lad, trained by Jimmy Frost, in a conditional jockeys’ selling handicap hurdle at Exeter in October 2007. He started out attached to Paul Nicholls’ yard where elder brother Dan was assistant and his most important win for Ditcheat at that stage of his career was Celestial Halo’s win in the 2011 National Spirit Hurdle at Fontwell.
Skelton’s riding career stalled somewhat in 2012/13 when he registered just eight wins but a turning point came when brother Dan left Nicholls to start training in his own right from a purpose-built yard at Lodge Hill in Warwickshire in the 2013/14 season.
Within months of Dan taking out a training licence, the Skelton brothers had their first major handicap success when Harry rode Willows Saviour to victory in The Ladbroke at Ascot. Neither brother has looked back since, with Harry’s increasing success in the saddle mirroring Dan’s progress through the training ranks.
Harry’s total of wins in 2014/15 was 55, more than double his score the previous season thanks to a growing string at Lodge Hill, while another leap forward in 2015/16 took Harry’s tally to 101 in a season when Dan likewise trained more than a hundred winners for the first time.
🏆 HARRY SKELTON: CHAMPION JOCKEY@harryskelton89 says a win on Shannon Bridge in February was when he got the Champion Jockey feeling:
— Sporting Life (@SportingLife) April 23, 2021
🗣️ "I thought then, we might be able to do something here. That was the turning point."
🎧 Listen to the new champ here... pic.twitter.com/s6p6lTOHV9
Another new personal best of 131 in 2017/18 resulted in Harry finishing third in the jockeys’ championship behind Richard Johnson and Brian Hughes who, as the reigning champion, proved Skelton’s chief rival in the latest season. In 2018/19 Dan became the first trainer since Martin Pipe to pass the double-century with 205 winners, most of those ridden by Harry whose 178 wins was bettered only by Richard Johnson’s 200 successes in what turned out to be the last of the recently-retired jockey’s four championship-winning seasons.
2018/19 was also a landmark season in another respect as it yielded the Skeltons their first Grade 1 victory when Roksana won the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, albeit with a good slice of fortune after she was handed the lead by Benie des Dieux’s fall at the final flight. The brothers had celebrated their first Festival success three years earlier when Superb Story won the County Hurdle.
Just how reliant Harry Skelton has been on his brother for winners can be seen from a breakdown of his total of 151 successes this season before Friday. Just 15 of those wins were supplied by other yards (comprising only eight different stables), with Olly Murphy responsible for four of them and Nicholls three.
One of those wins for Nicholls was on Politologue in the Tingle Creek Chase when Skelton kept the ride after winning the Queen Mother Champion Chase on the same horse the previous spring. On that occasion, Nicholls’ stable jockey Harry Cobden had elected to ride eventual runner-up Dynamite Dollars instead. Skelton got the ride on Politologue thanks to owner John Hales who has close associations through showjumping with Skelton’s father Nick.
Indeed, Harry Skelton’s rise to the top of the jockey ranks owes plenty to his father, winner of Olympic golds in showjumping at both London and Rio, as well as his brother. ‘The further out you can see a stride, the better – Dad has been a massive help in teaching how to get from one side of the fence to the other’ Skelton has said.
Politologue’s Tingle Creek at Sandown in December formed part of a Grade 1-double for Harry Skelton who also won the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase on Allmankind for his brother, the jockey getting a good tune out of both front runners.
Another highlight of the latest season was My Drogo keeping his unbeaten record over hurdles when winning the Grade 1 Mersey Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree. He looks a smashing prospect for novice chases next season when Harry Skelton will doubtless be intent on raising the bar again.
