Monday Musings: Early Payout for Skelton

I’m sure I’ve gone over this ground a time or two before but last week’s irritating cold weather snap has inevitably slowed down the workings of this ancient brain, writes Tony Stafford. I intend to show, in the manner of a Paddy Power early payout when a team goes two goals up, that Dan Skelton has already won the 2025/26 British Jump Trainers’ Championship.

Many thought he would win it last time round, but Willie Mullins sent a flotilla of his best horses to Sandown on the final day of last season and ended up foiling him by almost £200k – Mullins’ £3,570k to Skelton’s £3,377k. It seems emphatic, but until Mullins had that near clean sweep of the lavish £1 million Grand National prize – his 1-2-3 collecting £800k and 5^th and 7^th another £60k – he wasn’t seemingly even contemplating a challenge.

Of course, Mullins is good at making up lost ground in the second half of the season, which is pretty much where we are now, as his rival Gordon Ellliott would frustratingly testify.

Before yesterday at home Mullins was reasonably in touch with Elliott, whose 275 individual horses had clocked up €3,150k from 134 wins and numerous places. Mullins’ individual 228 had notched 106 wins and €2,289k. Elliott’s best of €4,744k in 2023/24 compares unfavourably with Mullins’ peak of €7,299 in 2022/23. Willie’s haul last season was €6,028k, almost exactly €2 million more than his rival.

In the UK though, it will take not just a herculean effort to target the big prizes, in some part to the detriment of looking after business at home, for him even to begin to look a danger to Skelton.

The nearest four players behind Dan are multiple champions Paul Nicholls in second and Nicky Henderson in fifth, with in between the fast-progressing Olly Murphy and Ben Pauling. Nicholls at £1,116k, Murphy and Pauling are both above the £1 million mark, but even then, hopelessly out of touch with Skelton. I don’t remember anything so one-sided ever before.

With the most lucrative part of the season still to come, Skelton, on £2,470k, is already around 65% of the way to last year’s personal best return. Mullins is trailing more than £2 million behind him after the Irish champion’s so-far meagre return of £278k from four winning horses.

Unless he matches or exceeds last year’s Grand National Trifecta, it’s hard to see where he can begin to stem the tide of the Warwickshire onslaught, which has already produced 111 wins for the season. Only once before has he exceeded 200, in the days a few years back when he targeted summer jumping. That’s no longer on the agenda – it’s class and quality over quantity these days.

Saturday’s impressive performance at Kempton under a 10lb penalty from Precious Man could well be significant as the big 4yo prizes come along.

This second win for the team after he was snapped up from under the noses of the Mullins/Kirk buying partnership from France last summer puts him firmly in as a challenger to the no-doubt formidable array of Mullins juveniles from the same source that will be in the Triumph Hurdle line-up in eight weeks’ time.

The Skeltons have targeted the three days of the Winter Racing Festival at Windsor and Ascot over the coming weekend for a concerted aim at solidifying their already commanding lead.

Windsor on Friday offers seven races worth a total of £415k and Skelton has a dozen entered in five of those contests. Ascot on Saturday and then back to Windsor for Sunday, there are similar cards with almost precisely the same amount of cash to be won – in all £1.25 million for the 21 races.

I always loved going jumping at Windsor in the old days, particularly enjoying the New Year’s Day Hurdle which was a serious trial for the Champion Hurdle. I was unsure whether last season’s initial go at jumping after so many years away from the Calendar was a success, but any gremlins with the track seemed to have been ironed out when they staged the first fixture of the 2025/26 season in late November. I’m looking forward to a midwinter feast this weekend.

The promised ease in the weather over the coming days will ensure a strong entry for all those races and the Skelton runners will face determined opposition throughout the weekend. It’s hard to escape the feeling though that Dan and jockey brother Harry have elevated themselves onto a higher plane, their defeats at the hands of Mullins merely doubling their resolve.

**

I was very sad to hear the news of problems at Chelmsford City racecourse, struggling with a serious loss on the past financial year leading to a reported delay in full payment of staff on the days leading up to Christmas.

Chelmsford isn’t everyone’s favourite track, but it’s handy to get to for racegoers in East London in particular and all over Essex. The grandstand might be facing the “wrong way” and unless you go along to the winning line and combine that with watching on the big screen, much of what happens around the circuit can be hard, actually impossible, to follow.

Trainers from Newmarket love its proximity, just down the M11, but those around Lambourn can be subjected to harrowing journeys when the M4, M25 and the M11 North are playing up, sometimes all at once!

With only a single way in, it was always tricky for the track when it hosted well-attended (sometimes up to even 30,000) music events, but when Justin Timberlake appeared last summer the whole thing ground to a halt after his performance with cars stuck in the car park for hours and the adjacent road connecting the City of Chelmsford to the A120 similarly blocked for ages.

That brought a severe sanction on the number of people that would be allowed at any fixture, 10,000 I believe, effectively stifling the wonderful work done by Neil Graham and his staff. I’ve known Neil since he trained out of the yard in Newmarket adjacent to the Tattersalls sales paddocks, when he had horses in the yard for the Thoroughbred Corporation.

He knows his stuff and is a very nice man to boot. I hope Chelmsford’s troubles will soon be sorted. They’ve fought back before and hopefully will do so again. I always enjoy going there and wish I’d been free to go yesterday, but late additions to the schedule aren’t always easy.

It’s a place where horses can build up impressive winning sequences and my pal Mick Godderidge, a shareholder in the now six-year-old Carlton, saw the horse win six times from seven runs at the track between December 2024 and last September for James Owen. No doubt he’ll add to that tally over this winter.

- TS

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