The Skeltons - Dan, Nick and Harry© Photo Healy Racing
Establishing dynasties is nothing new in equestrian sports, but the Warwickshire based Skelton family have certainly being doing their bit across both show jumping and National Hunt horse racing in recent years.
Father Nick is an Olympic gold medal winning Show Jumper, while ambitious sons Dan and Harry train and ride National Hunt horses. Let’s take a look in more detail at this equestrian sports family from the West Midlands.
The father
Nick Skelton had his finest hours in his 50s when Team GB landed the team show jumping Olympic Gold on home soil at London 2012 and he followed-up on that with individual glory at the Rio Olympics of 2016 both aboard Big Star. That was the seventh Olympic Games of his lengthy show jumping career and evidence age is certainly no barrier to success in equestrian sports.
A serious neck injury sustained by Skelton senior in 2000 threatened his career, but he returned to the saddle a couple of years later. He had at that stage already been competing for more than 25 years after landing individual gold and two team silvers at the Junior European Championships of 1975.
With three consecutive Hickstead Derby victories on his CV (1987-89), only Eddie Macken has won the event more times in a row. Skelton retired from show jumping in 2017 and also holds the British high jump record in the sport, once clearing seven foot seven inches in 1978.
The Trainer
Dan Skelton© Photo Healy RacingDan Skelton hopes to emulate his mentor and the man he used to assist, Paul Nicholls, by becoming champion National Hunt trainer. If the competition were done on wins alone and not prize money accrued, then he would already have achieved that feat.
As leading jumps trainer in 2017-18 after saddling 156 winners, Skelton actually had more success than Nicky Henderson, who was once again crowned the champion. A strike rate of 20 per cent for last season meant Skelton was among the handlers with the highest runners to winners ratio despite saddling the most mounts with over 800 runners.
That willingness to send out the most horses in search of the spoils has continued into this season with Skelton already reaching the 100-winner mark with half the season still to play. While he’s out in front in his latest bid to win the National Hunt trainers’ championship odds of 33/1 with 888Sport horse racing betting shows the magnitude of the task facing Skelton if he is to wrestle the title from Henderson’s grasp.
The Jockey
Harry Skelton, meanwhile, has ridden the vast majority of his 600 career winners for older brother Dan. The ambition to be champion jumps jockey is there and if he can avoid injury will surely emulate great contemporaries AP McCoy and Richard Johnson, who leads the Championship this season in the coming years.
Harry Skelton winning the 2009 Irish Grand National on Niche Market © Photo Healy RacingThe youngest of the Skelton men has already notched 100 winners this season and sits second the Johnson in the Jockeys’ Table. Harry Skelton is currently 8/1 in the National Hunt jockeys’ championship betting with 888Sport.
Unlike the trainers’ equivalent, the Champion Jockey title is awarded to the rider who wins the most races over the season. Skelton currently trails his rival Richard Johnson by 23 wins but this can change quickly in the unpredictable sport of horse racing.
