It’s been a season filled with sustained Saturday success for Dan Skelton, but a glance at the antepost betting tells you he remains up against it to conquer the Cheltenham Festival.
Weekend winners continue to rack up
When does the National Hunt season proper start in England? Some say it’s Wetherby’s Charlie Hall Chase meeting – Dan Skelton had three winners there. Some say it’s the November meeting at Cheltenham – Skelton won the Shloer Chase with Nube Negra. Some say it’s the first Grade 1 race of the campaign – Skelton landed that with Protektorat.
A good start, no doubt, and the feature winners have kept on coming. Le Milos won the Coral Gold Cup on his second start for the yard. Ashtown Lad was punched out by Harry Skelton for a smooth Becher Chase win. Abandonments may have halted the flow of big winners in December, but Skelton’s 2023 began with a bang on New Year’s Day thanks to Midnight River at Cheltenham. The weekend just gone provided the yard with two Grade 2s and a heritage handicap after wins for Galia Des Liteaux, Grey Dawning and West Balboa.
Skelton has already earned more prizemoney this season than he did in the whole of 2019-20. His own personal record haul of £2,301,457 in 2018-19 looks an attainable target already, too, even if the 205 winners from that same season looks an unlikely number to match. Skelton is more quality over quantity now compared to five years ago, which is what you need if you’re going to crack the Cheltenham Festival.
Sporadic pot plundering the Festival highlights
However, Skelton’s Cheltenham Festival record is patchy. Three County Hurdles and a fortunate Mares’ Hurdle success, with 100 defeats to go alongside those four victories.
Three County Hurdles, of course, is no mean feat. Especially when you consider the circumstances. Superb Story was having his first run in 124 days. Mohaayed was a 33/1 chance having his first run in 80 days. Ch’tibello was coming off a 97-day break, as well, on his first start since wind surgery.
They are the stories of a master plotter and trainer, but graded success is what he now yearns. Roksana bagged him a first and only Cheltenham Festival Grade 1 in the 2019 Mares’ Hurdle, she the chief beneficiary of Benie Des Dieux’s final hurdle exit, although Skelton’s luck went the other way in the 2021 Queen Mother Champion Chase when Nube Negra flew home for an unfortunate second.
Langer Dan was unfortunate in a different way. Sent off 13/2 for the 2021 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, he had a different profile to Skelton’s County crew having landed the Imperial Cup at Sandown just six days earlier.
He beat everything else by over nine lengths in the Martin Pipe, but was unlucky enough to bump into the somewhat chucked in Galopin Des Champs, this year’s Gold Cup favourite, who was running off a rating of 142. Brought down early on last year, Langer Dan will likely go again.
Having a Mares’ with more to come
It’s not really a surprise Skelton’s only Grade 1 win at the Cheltenham Festival came via the Mares’ Hurdle.
Roksana is the poster girl for his work with mares but there have been plenty more; Molly The Dolly, Molly Ollys Wishes, Maire Banrigh, Rene’s Girl and Momella to name but a few.
If it doesn’t sound like a coincidence, it’s because it isn’t – as Skelton explains.
“I did make a very conscious effort, right back when I first started training, that when you go to the sales the fillies are often the cheaper of the two, rightly or wrongly,” he told Racing TV’s Luck On Sunday.
“You can often get a very well-bred filly and a good-sized filly for less money. A lot of the owner-breeders were keeping their fillies to race and there were a lot of leases going on with good horses.
“I made a mental note right at the very start, that if we can do well with fillies it’s going to help us significantly. I’ve always had an interest in the breeding angle and we’ve taken that much further over the last three years.
“Honeysuckle shows, and many more before her, that 7lb can almost be for free, so we’ve always done well with fillies and always had it in our minds that we should do. Perhaps we’re a little softer on them between races?
“You’ve got to be hard on them to get them fit, you’ve got to be hard on any horse to get them fit, but perhaps in between we’re not quite as hard on them and that suits them.”
The Skelton regime certainly seems to be suiting weekend winners Galia Des Liteaux (might need a bog to go to Cheltenham) and West Balboa (in the Mares’ Hurdle but could be one for the Coral Cup), while Kateira, a clear-cut winner at Huntingdon last Friday, looks a novice with a bright future, too.
If Skelton is to have his best-ever Festival in March, you feel one of those mares will have to reward his policy in the most spectacular way.
Skelton's best horses: Timeform ratings
What would be considered a successful Festival?
Up against the might of Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott, Skelton would probably say one winner and there is some truth in that.
Picking off another handicap like he did with those trio of County Hurdle winners is an achievement in itself considering the firepower of the big Irish trainers, but inside Skelton will be hunting for more.
He’s taken a leaf out of his old mentor Paul Nicholls’ playbook by dominating the British racing scene with those big Saturday winners, but he’s ambitious enough to want Festival success like those golden days at Ditcheat when he was assistant – commonly known as the Kauto Star era.
Yet the current gulf in class between the best of the British and the Irish monsters is illustrated by a mere glance at the antepost markets. Protektorat, at 9/1 for the Gold Cup, is Skelton’s shortest-priced runner at the meeting as things stand, although Langer Dan (we will avenge that defeat!) is giving him a run for his money in the Martin Pipe.
Ballygrifincottage looks a good novice chaser, Grey Dawning would have a squeak in an Albert Bartlett, Galia Des Liteaux might be of interest if the rain came in force – and a wet spring would seem to benefit Skelton’s string no end.
It’s in the handicaps, though, where punters will respect his name the most. Le Milos, Ashtown Lad, Midnight River, West Balboa, Third Time Lucki and his County Hurdle-selected will be ringed by many when the weights are released.
A Festival double or better is the next step for Skelton. Judging by the limelight factor from the season so far, he will have his best ever chance of accomplishing such an ambition.
More in the series
January 11 - Who is Willie's Sporting Life Arkle number one?
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