After his Crisp-like capitulation around the Elbow in the last two National Hunt trainers’ championships, Dan Skelton has set off at an even faster pace in this season’s title race and has already amassed more than £1.7m in prize money, nearly £1m ahead of second-placed Olly Murphy.
The tally that is likely to matter most in April 2026, of course, will belong to Willie Mullins, who has shown that quality matters more than quantity by winning the last two titles with big hauls at the spring festivals, despite an overall aggregate winner-count of 300-66 in Skelton’s favour.
But in that respect too there is encouragement for Skelton, who saddled 20 fewer winners in from May to the end of November than in the 2024-25 campaign, but upped his prize money total by nearly £450,000 year-on-year.
It is a step up in terms of quality that may be further underscored at Sandown on Saturday when Skelton’s L’Eau Du Sud lines up for the Grade One Tingle Creek Chase against two top-class rivals in Mullins’s Il Etait Temps and Nicky Henderson’s popular and consistent Jonbon, the winner for the past two seasons.
The Tingle Creek is the last of four big feature chases on consecutive Saturdays in November and December after the Paddy Power Gold Cup, the Betfair Chase and the Coral Gold Cup, and Skelton will be the first trainer ever to win all four in the same season if L’Eau Du Sud is first home on Saturday.
And while statistical nit-pickers might point out that the Betfair Chase dates back only as far as 2005, the Tingle Creek is the next-youngest on the list having been first run in 1969. Skelton would be the first trainer to complete the Paddy Power/Coral/Tingle Creek treble, too.
A win for L’Eau Du Sud might also be a useful nerve-stiffener for his trainer, as Il Etait Temps has the potential to be among Mullins’s biggest money-earners this season.
The Flat season was already up and running when the seven-year-old returned from a 359-day absence in the Grade One Celebration Chase over Saturday’s track and trip in late April, and so Il Etait Temps’s impressive five-and-a-half length defeat of Jonbon did not, perhaps, receive quite the attention it deserved.
It was every inch a Grade One performance, though, and backed up by an excellent time, and while Jonbon was much further behind L’Eau Du Sud in the Shloer Chase at Cheltenham last time, better ground could well see Nicky Henderson’s runner improve significantly for the run.
With the major contenders all priced up between 10-11 and 4-1, this is a three-way go for the Tingle Creek that summons memories of the match-up between Moscow Flyer, Azertyuiop and Well Chief in this race in 2004. All three principals are Grade One winners over course and distance and while the nine-year-old Jonbon may struggle to reverse his recent form with Il Etait Temps and L’Eau Du Sud, there is very little between the latter pair on ratings, form or the pick of their time-figures.
As a result, the bet at the prices in a race to savour is surely L’Eau Du Sud (3.00) at around 5-2. He won as he pleased at Cheltenham last time but still posted a very strong time in the conditions, and while he may not have as much scope for improvement in fitness terms as his main rivals, a repeat of his latest form could well be enough.
Sandown 1.20 A 7lb for a second successive win looks generous for Turndlightsdownlow and is largely offset by Freddie Keighley’s claim.
Sandown 1.50 Four exciting novice chase prospects for the card’s first Grade One and none more so than the four-year-old Lulamba, last year’s Triumph Hurdle runner-up.
Aintree 2.05 Edelak, a product of the Aga Khan’s breeding operation, did enough on the Flat for Johnny Murtagh to suggest he will be an interesting recruit to juvenile hurdling.
Wetherby 11.10 Ade Boy 11.40 Athair Mor 12.17 Kilbarry Hill 12.50 Chase A Fortune 1.25 Express Surprise 1.57 Solly’s Gold
Aintree 11.48 Captain Hugo 12.24 Sandscape 12.58 Inedit Star 1.30 Margaret’s Legacy 2.05 Edelak 2.40 White Rhino 3.15 Rambo T
Chepstow 11.55 The Price Of Peace 12.29 Ben Solo 1.04 Idefix De Ciergues 1.36 Pats Fancy 2.11 Bective Abbey 2.46 Modern Man 3.21 Presley
Sandown 12.10 Sober Glory 12.43 Sunset Marquesa 1.20 Turndlightsdownlow (nap) 1.50 Lulamba 2.25 Go Dante (nb) 3.00 L’Eau du Sud 3.35 Tanganyika
Wolverhampton 4.30 Arnaz 5.00 Galileo Charm 5.30 Archers Bay 6.00 R P McMurphy 6.30 Zryan 7.00 Yurinov 7.30 Hackney Diamonds 8.00 Gilt Edge 8.30 I Can Imagine
Sandown 2.25 Track specialist Go Dante is just 1lb higher than for the first of his two Imperial Cup victories.
Aintree 2.40 It is still early days for White Rhino as a chaser and his return to action over the National fences in the Grand Sefton was a non-event after he was hampered at the third. The step up in trip will suit and he has been dropped 4lb since.
Aintree 3.15 The form of Rambo T’s Chepstow win in October has been franked by two next-time winners from the first four home.
Sandown 3.35 The strong-travelling Tanganyika has the right profile to give Venetia Williams a second win in this race in four years.
