Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Not the famous Alan Partridge sketch, but the first half of the UK jumps season as Skelton mopped up big race after big race.
There’s L’Eau du Sud winning the Henry VIII. There’s The New Lion skipping away with the Challow. There’s Protektorat landing the Fleur De Lys. There’s Grey Dawning bouncing back in the Premier Chase.
That quartet scooped up £235,000 for those four races alone. All pre-Cheltenham, no Willie Mullins-trained runner in sight.
And for all winning the trainers’ title is partly a numbers game – Skelton has saddled up over 400 runners more than Paul Nicholls, for example – it’s the big guns that really make the difference.
The aforementioned Skelton quartet have been his big money spinners this season. Of his near £3.4million haul those four won almost £650,000. That’s good, but he either needs more from his big guns or more big guns to fire.
If he’s to win the trainers’ title anytime soon, in the current climate, you feel it has to be the latter.
For when Mullins unleashes his weaponry, there’s nothing Skelton can do. From November to pre-Cheltenham Skelton doesn’t really have to worry about Mullins. There might be the odd raider in something like the King George, but Mullins usually keeps his powder dry until the Festival.
Significant success there is almost guaranteed. Then it becomes a case of how in touch of top spot he is heading into Aintree. What would a Grand National win do for him? After this season, how much of the Grand National total pot can he win?
The reality is the National has become a race that Mullins can farm. He’s going for three in a row next year and if he wins it again, with a few more placed horses in behind for good measure, a third successive UK trainers’ title will likely be his.
This must be deeply frustrating for Skelton, who has grown his business to such levels that he can overpower Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson just with the sheer scale of his operation.
But if he’s to achieve his long-held ambition of becoming Champion Trainer he needs more Saturday horses, more Festival horses, more quality amongst the quantity.
Of course, he’s well aware of this. In a pre-Cheltenham stable visit just two months ago he said: “What sets Willie apart is talent – his talent and that of his horses. We can all get them fit and Willie’s are super, super-fit. But it is going to be so hard to surpass Willie while he has the flow of talent that he has.
“What we have taken from that is that we need to make our own relationships and purchases from a supply chain – we can’t go to his and say ‘excuse me, Francois, can we give you £50,000 more than monsieur Mullins?’ It doesn’t work like that.
“He’s got his supply chain and we need to make our own - that’s what we’re doing and I think that’s reaping the rewards. You can’t do that over a month or two years or five years – it’s over lifetimes that you build those connections and that’s what you’re starting to see now.”
The process is working for Skelton. Just look at his growth by total prizemoney in the last six years:
- 2025 - £3,371,483
- 2024 - £2,983,657
- 2023 - £2,614,206
- 2022 - £2,116,783
- 2021 - £1,858,165
- 2020 - £1,486,254
Like he said in the build-up to Sandown this week, he’s had an incredible year. Almost £3.4million would win him the Champion Trainer trophy most years – even last year, when Mullins went home with £3,326,135 in the satchel.
He's doing everything right. The supply chains are getting better. A few more big guns, a bit more quality - and Mullins not winning the Grand National - and a trainers’ title looks his for the taking. Back of the net.
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