Wednesday's Meetings Cheltenham N/H 7 Races 1:30-5:00p.m. Beverley Flat 8 Races 1:40-5:37p.m. Newmarket Flat 7 Races 1:50-5:20p.m. Gowran Flat 7 Races 1:57-5:27p.m. Ffos Las(E) N/H 7 Races 4:37-7:45p.m. Wincanton Abandoned Racecards At The Races Sporting Life Racing Post Good Luck
With just around £10k between Skelton and Mullins in the trainers champs this Cheltenham April meeting seems to have fairly strong fields entered. Looking further ahead the entries for the top races at Plumpton over this Easter weekend look stellar.
Does indeed Oddy. Skelton has a free swing at Haydock for some £25k+ prizes as most of the bigger pots on the card looks like entrants had to qualify. Willie is mob handed in the 2 big pots at Plumpton and has seemingly every handicap chaser he’s got entered in the Whitbread the following Saturday.
Must admit I’ve not been paying attention, since Cheltenham I’ve left the jumps, bar a couple of races at Aintree. I thought they’d run well Scottish National was a worse betting race for the participation of the Mullins masses and I can’t stand Skelton so perhaps that’s why the title race malarky isn’t interesting to me.
I like them both and I think we are seeing a fascinating and deeply impressive evolution of Willie Mullins and his team over the last couple of seasons. Not only is he still dominating the Grade 1s at the major festivals (even though he only won 1 of the 4 Championship races at this year's Cheltenham Festival) but he is getting horses into the big handicaps off winnable marks. With the Grade 1 horses you could say "he just gets the best horses", even though that massively underplays what the whole team at Closutton does. But to get the 1-2-3 in the Grand National and then follow it up a week later with a 1-2 in the Scottish National is just next level. As a direct comparison - I think Mullins would have got a lot more out of Protektorat and Grey Dawning this season than Skelton has.
I think it’s interesting because of the completely different approaches. Skelton has £3.1 mill from 900+ runners/164 winners. Willie has his £3.1 mill from 160 runners/31 winners. So Willie averages about 19k return per runner and £100k per winner. Skelton averages £19k per winner and less than £4k per runner. If Skelton does lose and I suspect he will he might want to reflect on how he sources his horses. Willie clearly operates on a different level to everyone else in this regard.
But Chan, you have to have the owners that are willing to invest in the horses. Those numbers are based on UK runners and Willie would only be sending over the cream of his string.
Understood but there appears to be plenty of non Irish based folk who want horses with Mullins rather than UK trainers. Personally I wouldnt go near trainers with such big numbers in training but it seems plenty are beating a path to Closutton at present. Willie must have some operation there to keep everyone happy.
Skelton sends out Riskintheground 5 days after his last win to scoop a £40k pot at Cheltenham with Mullins runner up. That must have pleased burly Dan. If he’s to have any chance he needs a decent lead going into Sandown.
