3 minute read
Dan Skelton is readying himself for the untold lows which come with the occasional high during the four days of the Cheltenham Festival.
The Alcester-based handler is well accustomed to meeting triumph and disaster, and treating those two imposters just the same at Prestbury Park.
When Roksana provided Skelton with his first Festival Grade One in the Mares' Hurdle, she was the beneficiary of a final-flight tumble from Benie Des Dieux.
For his other three strikes at the spring showpiece – which have all come in the County Hurdle – he has had to wait until the final day of the meeting. Away from that quartet, many of the Lodge Hill squad have barely been a footnote in the etchings of Cheltenham history.
Friday could prove key to how Skelton's Festival is judged once again, as along with the usual squad of shrewdly-positioned handicappers, Protektorat will attempt to better last year's bronze medal in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Despite having already pocketed the scalp of reigning Gold Cup champion A Plus Tard in the Betfair Chase, Skelton knows observers will take a dim view if Protektorat is unable to go stride for stride with some of Ireland's best staying chasers in the blue riband.
And although the Festival is close to his heart, this analysis is not something he agrees with.
"I love it (Cheltenham) and it's great fun, it's highly competitive and extremely professional," said Skelton.
"Winning these big races with Harry (Skelton) and Bridget (Andrews) is great and winning them at Cheltenham is great, but it doesn't mean they are bigger races.
"Some of them are bigger, like the Gold Cup. But there is nothing to detract from the fact that the Betfair is a big race, the Coral Gold Cup (formerly the Hennessy) is a big race and the Becher is a big race.
"Le Milos won the Coral Gold Cup and that is worth more than any handicap at the Cheltenham Festival and Protektorat won one of the big races of the year, the Betfair.
"If both of those horses don't win at the Cheltenham Festival, does it mean they have had a bad season? Absolutely not and it should never be viewed as that."
He went on: "You've got to enjoy the journey, it's not about turning up on one day and saying that it is, or it is not a successful season because you didn't win a Gold Cup.
"You would very quickly fall out of love with the sport if it was all about how you performed on one day and that was how you were judged. It is not as straightforward as that.
"We're going to go to the Festival and Willie (Mullins) is going to have more winners than Nicky (Henderson), and Nicky will have more winners than me and that is how it is. I hope to change that one day, but that is how it is. But it doesn't mean you have had a bad year if you haven't gone there and created fireworks.
"You get started, you get through it, hopefully you get a bit of success. If you get some success, enjoy it and if you don't, don't take it personally and move on."
Skelton spent nine years, mostly as assistant trainer, with Paul Nicholls at a time when the Ditcheat 'Galacticos' ruled the roost at Cheltenham.
However, he also got to experience the bitter disappointments of Prestbury Park while the champion trainer's right-hand man and stresses the rolling undulations of the sport's Cotswolds focal point is no place for simply a day out.
"I think I make it quite obvious right through the year I don't like Cheltenham being rammed down my throat, because I've got a job to do and not all of the horses are headed there," continued Skelton.
"If it is not appropriate to take them there, then we can't do so.
"I think it's becoming more and more obvious which ones suit (Cheltenham) and which ones don't. My owners really get on board with doing the right thing with it and it's a vital part of our industry that I think we need to make sure we get right all the time.
"In general I'm not going to have a massive team and I only want to take horses who have a real chance of getting into the winner's enclosure.
"One thing we've learned over the years is that it can be a great place and it can also be a very frustrating place.
"We're going to just try to take the horses who are either suitable for it, deserve to take their chance at it or the ones that we really think have to go – it's not going to be too much more complicated than that for us."
If the Lodge Hill team are to find the scoresheet at the Festival, then it is likely either Harry Skelton or his wife Bridget Andrews will be the jockey doing the steering, and the family aspect of the business is something which makes the highs all that more enjoyable.
"Me and Harry work very closely together – and Bridget – and I love doing that. What you have to remember is whatever you do in life, you have to enjoy it and learn how to enjoy it," explained Skelton.
"He's (Harry) hugely important, massively. The more things happen, the more important he is. He's here every day, he helps me train the horses. I seek his advice, he seeks my advice and we just try to make it work.
"I said right from the start it will be a very different day when Harry isn't riding them. It would be a very different dynamic. But he will want to be involved in horses the whole way through which gives me some comfort."