Skelton first to top the 50-winner mark
SHELFIELD Green trainer Dan Skelton’s career has been on an upward path since sending out his maiden winner in the 2013-14 season and he became the first trainer to pass the 50-winner mark for the current campaign when Wynford scored at Bangor-on-Dee, ridden by his brother Harry, writes David Hucker.
Skelton began his racing career as assistant to 10-times champion trainer Paul Nicholls and, since setting up on his own, has gone from strength to strength, with the stable’s runners first past the post 118 times last season, netting £1,329,107 in prize money.
He started the current season with a bang, landing a double on the very first day at Warwick at the beginning of May and, apart from a blip in June, sending out a regular flow of winners.
One of the features of his success has been the improvement he brings out in horses joining his burgeoning stable and Daulys Anthem was another advertisement for his skills when romping away with the opening Happy Birthday Rob Williams Handicap Chase at Stratford’s last meeting.
Daulys Anthem had become a bit of a professional loser, failing to win in 14 previous starts under Rules. He left Worcester trainer David Dennis, but didn’t offer much hope of better times to come when unseating his rider and pulling up in two outings in point-to-points for Christopher Wald.
But, now with Skelton and backed from 9-4 into 6-4 favourite, he led approaching the fifth fence and, jumping boldly in front, was never headed, winning by 26 lengths from Drumlang.
Such was the ease of his win, Skelton ran Daulys Anthem again 24 hours later and he became the stable’s second winner at Bangor when landing the Fraser Wealth Management Handicap Chase in a new course record time.
What was already a good afternoon got even better, as Mister Universum followed up his Stratford win last month to make it a treble on the day for Team Skelton and take the stable’s seasonal score to 52.
For jockey Harry, the season is also promising to be the best so far of his career, as he moved onto 47 winners, just one behind championship leader Richard Johnson. He lacks the backing of the range of trainers that Johnson and other title contenders enjoy meaning that lifting the crown will be a tough challenge.
But, with jump racing due to resume after a short break at Newton Abbot next Wednesday, the Skeltons will be keen to continue where they left off and there will be no slackening of the pace as they look to maintain their blistering start to the season.
Although there is still plenty of racing to come at Stratford and elsewhere in 2017, the fixture list for next year has been announced, along with a near £10 million boost to the sport’s grassroots. The 2018 list will feature a record 1,508 meetings, an increase of 11 on the current year, beating the previous largest when 1,506 were scheduled in 2010.
The British Horseracing Authority has estimated that £9.7m of levy funding from bookmakers is set to be targeted at the mid to lower tiers of the sport, with the result that most races in Britain will be run next year with a total value of at least £6,000.
Racecourses will be able to unlock the extra funding by increasing their own contribution to prize-money.
In doing so, they will receive extra race incentive prize-money funding as well as accessing what will be British racing's biggest appearance money scheme, with qualifying races offering payments of at least £300 for horses finishing between fifth and eighth place.
In all, there will be 598 jumps meetings, down three on this year. Having seen its number of meetings increased this year, Stratford drops back from 19 to 18 under the new list, although retaining its two popular evening meetings in June and back-to-back Sundays in July.
Nationally, the emphasis will be on meetings staged at a time to suit racegoers with afternoon meetings down 19 to 1,096, but evening meetings up 30 to 412.
There will be a clear gap between jumps seasons with a week-long break after the bet365 finale meeting at Sandown Park in April.
