Dan Skelton is giving the lowdown on his Cheltenham contenders and, quickly, an unusual theme is developing on the kind of morning that demands optimism.
‘His season had a rocky start but I learned a good bit about him that day,’ says Skelton, Britain’s Champion Trainer in waiting, as he runs his hand over the withers of The New Lion, his candidate for today’s Unibet Champion Hurdle.
‘I feel like I could have done things differently before Aintree when he got beaten,’ Skelton continues, with a grimace, this time as he looks at the wonderfully-named Mydaddypaddy, who will be running in the Festival’s opening race, The Supreme Novices Hurdle.
‘I probably didn’t have him as well as I could have done,’ he adds, as L’Eau du Sud, a bonny grey gelding who is owned by Sir Alex Ferguson and friends and is well fancied for Wednesday’s Queen Mother Champion Chase, stands patiently in the courtyard outside his stable.
Failure wasn’t expected to form part of conversation with a man who has trained 158 winners this season and has amassed just short of £3.5million in prize money, a yawning gap of £1.9m over his nearest pursuer – and one-time mentor – Paul Nicholls.
But this turns out to be fascinating. Skelton, whose dual Olympic Gold-winning father, Nick, is equestrian royalty, is always informative and never short of opinion but here, at his training base in Alcester, Warwickshire, he’s talking with candour.
Dan Skelton has trained 158 winners this season and has amassed just short of £3.5million in prize money
He understands of the tantalising potential for magic over the next four days. His squad, 35 deep, is brimming with talent and he bursts with enthusiasm about the chances of Maestro Conti – another Ferguson-owned runner – in Friday’s Triumph Hurdle.
Nothing flicks the switch more, though, than getting him to discuss coming up short. He’s been beaten to the trainer’s title by Willie Mullins on the last day of the last two seasons but the benefits of having wise counsel around him: success, simply, isn’t possible without failure.
‘When you win, there are two things,’ he begins. ‘The first is relief because, let’s be honest, sometimes (in sport) you win when you shouldn’t. Everyone looks at the result and tells you: ‘well, you should have done’ – look at how it was when Tiger Woods was collecting all those Majors.
‘It probably even got into his head at some stage: ‘Well, I should win’. Now, I’m not comparing myself to Tiger Woods, by the way. That would be absolutely ridiculous. But if you are sending out an odds-on favourite, as we have been doing, all people are expecting is for it to win.
‘But the euphoria of winning can make you miss the lessons you should have picked up. You learn more in defeat than you do in victory; you also learn from defeat what you shouldn’t have done (in a race or preparations) and that’s good. Sometimes you do things wrong and you still win.
‘That can be really dangerous as well because you think to yourself: “I’ve got away with it’ – and there is no worse trait than to keep thinking you have got away with something. You’ll keep doing the wrong thing and eventually it will catch up with you.”
Nobody, though, has been able to catch up with Skelton through this marvellous winter. His team’s planning and preparations have been meticulous, with November – when he won big Saturday races four weeks in a row – the moment when the afterburners were engaged.
He won’t take anything for granted – how could he when Mullins threatens like a shark in the deep? – and it is the prospect of fear, of it all being taken away and coming back empty handed, that allows complacency to be banished.
‘I’ve been very lucky all my life,’ he says. ‘I’ve been surrounded by people who achieved great things and it is comforting when you are around them. My Dad, the people he competed with; going down to Paul’s, watching Ruby (Walsh) doing what he was doing every day; the owners that came along.
‘From a business side, you are dealing with people who have been unbelievably successful in their own fields. The one thing that runs true through them all – and I don’t want this to come across in a bad way because it isn’t that – is the fact it is never enough. It is never enough.’
Skelton (left) pictured with brother Harry and his jockey wife Bridget (centre) and their legendary father Nick
Don’t all champions think this way? Skelton, who has trained 11 Festival winners – the first being Superb Story in the 2016 County Hurdle, is desperate to have a horse so good that it will become public property and success for The New Lion in the Champion would be decisive.
But Skelton thinks back to his time working for Nicholls and the golden period when Kauto Star and Denman were annexing Gold Cups and Big Buck’s was proving to be unbeatable over hurdles; his old boss wouldn’t think of saying ‘job done’ after one success and that approach his rubbed off.
‘If you have won 15 Majors, you want to win the sixteenth don’t you?’ he emphasises. ‘It’s just never enough. I find myself in that mode and I know I have it in my psyche. Nowadays, I think we are better as a society at sitting down and realising what we’ve achieved – even if only for a short space of time.
‘The last generation, like Sir Alex and my father, they didn’t have anyone to sit down and pat them on the back. I’m not sure they necessarily accepted that they had done well. Do you know what I mean? I think we are better at it now.
But, the truth is, it’s always burning inside. If NASA said: ‘It’s ok – we’ve gone to the moon’ well, you’d never get to Mars. If someone comes along and cures measles and then stops, you’ll never cure the next thing. It doesn’t matter what it is in life. It’s never enough. You have got to drive on.’
And he will: Grey Dawning will be the arrow he fires at Friday’s Gold Cup, the esteem he has for the progressive Kabral Du Mathan – a dark horse in the Stayers Hurdle – is infectious and there is a giveaway smile when he talks about Supremely West’s claims in Pertemps Handicap on Thursday.
Winning and competing is a drug of sorts and it’s obvious how he thrives on it. There might have been things he wishes he’d done differently but the flip side of that means he arrives at Cheltenham in his best place.
‘I love this sport,’ he says, before heading out to oversee another lot on a gallop that looks as steep as the north face of the Eiger. ‘This week is the showcase, it’s what it’s all about. Am I nervous? Not a chance. Nerves don’t get you anywhere. Let’s go and give it our all.’
