Dan Skelton has been an immovable object at the top of the National Hunt trainers’ table since the opening day of the 2024-25 season on 4 May last year but, when he comes up against the irresistible force of Willie Mullins’s stable at Sandown on Saturday, the betting market sees only one winner.
Mullins is top-priced at 1-6 to retain the title he won for the first time last year, and while stranger things happen in racing on a fairly regular basis – a 1-9 shot was beaten in a two-horse race at Fakenham less than a month ago – even Skelton has seemed slightly resigned to his probable fate in the run-up to this weekend’s decisive card.
