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A double at Warwick for the Skeltons and £52k closer to the £5 million which is almost in the bag. Winner number 239 for Sean Bowen at Perth. There’s guys on Facebook saying the games gone – nonsense- It has changed and the Mullins/JP domination is not ideal but these boys are posting numbers which I thought couldn’t be achieved. Willie has inspired everyone to raise the bar. We need more top horses this side of the Emerald Sea but those will come and trainers like Murphy and Pauling will be trying to up their game and chasing Dan hard so there are good reasons to be positive.
Murphy is a top fella and in Bowen he has the best Jockey , he just needs that 1 or 2 top class horses , sadly one last really come his way yet
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Skelton has raised the bar in spectacular fashion this season. He is so far clear of Henderson and Nicholls that they should be embarrassed. It is difficult to see either being Champion Trainer again.
If Skelton maintains this standard, I doubt Mullins can win the title again either. He would need to run horses regularly throughout the British season and that is not likely to happen, especially with Elliott having undergone something of a revival this season.
Perhaps Mullins won his two British titles in a short window of opportunity, in between Nicholls and Henderson falling away and before Skelton was in a position to take over.
Completely agree, CAS. He moved into a new dimension this season. It is quite a feat to have your stable in form throughout the entire season. Hendo and Nicholls had their share of bad runs, but the Skeltons weren’t even close of hitting a flat spot.
You have to give them credit for choosing the correct targets and with such fit horses they rarely had a (high profile) fatality. Fatalities can happen, but they rarely occur to a fit horse or a jockey in top form. Both Skeltons performed at their very best, I think there is more to come and they won’t have to fear Nicholls or Hendo if they keep up the excellent work.
Willie will stay away for the Trainers’ battle, but he’ll win a few more Grand Nationals, Gold Cups or whatever he wants to win.Agree ERL. It has already been an incredible season for the Skelton team and will be even more so if they break the £5 million barrier.
I have mixed feelings about the way Skeltons manage to get their horses so well handicapped but I suppose they can’t really be blamed for gaming a system which allows them to get away with it.
Mullins will continue to dominate Cheltenham for a while yet but I doubt he will even think about the Championship again if Skelton maintains this sort of standard.
At least Henderson had two Cheltenham winners but Nicholls looks to be miles off the pace now. He might slip even further behind now he is losing his prime asset to McManus.
I noticed Jonathan Burke has split from Feargal O’Brien. It made me wonder if he might take over at Ditcheat.
I was thinking the same about Jonathan Burke, but with only seven career rides for Nicholls the chances of taking over the Cobden job are rather small. What about him getting more rides from the Tom George yard?
Maybe Nicholls pre ious wives played a hand in his success? Sometimes think trainers wives don’t get the credit they deserve.
If you don’t get the horses then you can’t win the big race , it’s that simple , he’s want helped by Cobden giving one his horses an absolute stinker of a ride at the festival , we shouldn’t forget how well Paul campaigned Kauto and Denman , or Neptune who won plenty Inc a Grand National , Skelton is on top now but he hasn’t yet hit the peak that Nicholls did
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Well deserved, bet that tastes pretty sweet! Good for him.
Nice interviews…AP McCoy still doesn’t believe in laurel resting
Incredible achievement from the whole Skelton yard, lovely to see many of the staff around the winners enclosure to welcome the horse back but racing once again proves how the incredible highs can be mixed with the incredible and heartbreaking lows….fingers crossed for Thistle Ask but it didn’t look good.
Edit: RIP Thistle Ask – condolences to the connection but as always especially to the groom
Johnny de la Hey has removed all his horses from Paul Nicholls.
7, including Pic D’Orhy, are going to Dan Skelton. The other 4 will be split between Jamie Snowden and Chris Gordon.
Willie has achieved £/€10m in one season. Skelton just needs to do what he’s done this year and then double it.
Skelton appears set on complete domination at any cost. 264 individual horses ran last season so that doesn’t include his unraced stores, juveniles etc. He will be pushing 350 over the next five years and then who knows where he goes from there?
He can see the numbers Elliott (325) and Willie (295) have run and clearly wants what they have but I suspect he wants much more than that still.
Skelton’s is not a stable, it’s a burgeoning horse farm and he’d probably milk them if he could.
His nearest rival in terms of horse numbers in the UK is Murphy with 192 last season with perennial underachiever Fergal O’Brien next with 158. In comparison Hendo and Nicholls ran 105 and 126 individual horses respectively.
Dull times ahead domestically it seems.
It could be argued that Murphy is underachieving as well, given his numbers.
I think Henderson and Nicholls have accepted they cannot compete with Skelton in the numbers game or in the Championship. They are both considerably older than him and probably accept the Championship is a young man’s game now.
”I think it may have been Dan Skelton who played a part in his success”
Nicholls absolute best years do coincide with the years Skelton was his assistant. He’s been on a gradual decline year by year ever since.
Nicholls is obviously a top trainer but I do think the Skelton’s are going to absolutely dominate the sport on the UK side in a manner that neither Nicholls or Henderson ever came close to.
They’ll be the ones who replace Willie at the top imo and they’ll do it within the next 5 years.
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