Dan Skelton is out to 3/1 with Paddy Power to claim a first British Trainers' Championship this weekend but he's backing himself to win it.
The Alcester-based trainer enjoyed a productive Easter Monday, saddling four winners courtesy of Deep Purple and Doyouknowwhatimean at Chepstow, Claim Du Brizais at Fakenham and, more significantly in terms of prize money, Mostly Sunny at Plumpton.
But the bookies now make Mullins 2/9 favourite in the two-horse race and it looks set to go down to the last day of the season at Sandown where Lossiemouth, Gaelic Warrior, Energumene, El Fabiolo and Impaire Et Passe could all form part of the raiding party from Ireland.
The two trainers will also be represented during the three-day Perth Festival which runs from Wednesday through to Friday and Skelton - who has saddled 958 winners compared to Mullins' 174 and still leads by £52,698 - is feeling upbeat.
He said on Tuesday's edition of the Nick Luck Daily Podcast: "It (the mood) is pretty good.
"Obviously, there was a bit of an ebb and flow last week with Cheltenham and then Plumpton, but we've stayed ahead the whole way through. It looks like we'll stay ahead the whole way to Sandown and then we know what's coming at Sandown - we've seen the entries.
"I don't know what he (Mullins) is going to run, we can only run what we can. We just need a bit of a lead going into it to try and defend the best we can. We need all our colleagues (other British trainers) to have a good Sandown too, but the mood is really positive, everyone is enjoying it and the support at the track - especially the two days at Plumpton - I've never experienced anything like it to be honest. I know it's not the biggest track in the world but there were people so behind us.
"It wasn't like that last year at all, but it gives me lots of joy as much as anything as people are enjoying it and if we don't win we're obviously odds-on to get beat, but it doesn't feel like it'll be for nothing as everyone is enjoying it so much. People are emailing, texting and messaging me and you don't even get that sort of response before Cheltenham (Festival) so it's a different thing and even if we get beat it will have been worth it because we've had an absolutely unbelievable year.
"No one has ever won over £3million and got beaten in a championship so it's not like we're doing badly. If it's not our turn to win it then it's not our turn to win it.
"I can only take a lot of positives from the support and from the reaction that we've had and the mood in the yard, everyone is well for this and I can tell that if we don't win it then everyone wants to win it next year.
"You could easily not enjoy it and get the hump. At the end of the day, after the Grand National I was disappointed for that evening but the next day I woke up and was like 'how can you legislate for that?'. You can't plan for him taking £840,000 out of one race, you wouldn't even say you could be champion trainer if you knew he could take 840 grand out of that race, so you've just got to smile and go oh well, that's the times we live in.
"We'll have a lead going into Saturday but it won't be very big and we're just going to have to do our best. Like I say, we need others to go well - we need Pic D'orhy to go well and we need Jonbon to turn up at his best. We need everybody to sort of try and keep as much prize money away from Willie in all honesty and I know that's a pretty unsporting this to say but if we want to win the championship, it depends on him not winning that much but we can only win so much. We don't have the depth in those Graded races on Saturday so we're relying a little bit on others.
"But what will be, will be.
"We're not going in there favourite but I'd back myself, I'd back my team, I'd back all of us. We will run up to the last race, we will do all we can and we'll do it with a smile on our face. If you don't back yourself, who will back you?"
Paddy Power's spokesperson Paul Binfield reckons it will be hard for Skelton to cling on.
He said: “Having assessed the strength of entries Willie has in the coming week and after seeing support for a lot of his runners on Saturday, we now consider Dan to have quite an uphill battle to wrestle the title away from the Irishman and have cut Mullins accordingly."
More from Sporting Life
- Racecards
- Fast results
- Free bets
- Full results and free video replays
- Horse racing news
- Horse racing tips
- Horse racing features
- Download our free iOS and Android app
- Football and other sports tips
- Podcasts and video content
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org
