AS always on the Monday after any Grand National, the week ahead is going to be a bit of a quiet one on the racecourse.
But that does not mean there might not be major repercussions from the three days of drama we have just enjoyed at Aintree.
There are only three meetings anywhere in the Midlands in the next seven days – one tonight on the flat at Wolverhampton and two jumps cards, the first at Hereford on Thursday, followed by Stratford on Sunday.
But it’s going to be anything but quiet now for the Warwickshire-based Team Skelton until the 2024-25 jumps season closes with the finale at Sandown Park on Saturday 26 April.
For so long this season, Dan Skelton has seemed nailed on to at last claim the trainers’ title – especially after last year’s near miss to Ireland’s Wille Mullins.
Unlike the jump jockeys title, which is decided purely on winners, the trainers’ championship is based on prize money.
Last year, Mullins became a late contender after enjoying a Champion Hurdle/Cheltenham Gold Cup/Grand National spring treble with State Man, Galopin Des Champs and I Am Maximus.
And, with a Scottish Grand National and a bet365 Gold Cup win at Sandown Park then thrown in too, as the Irishman ‘went for it’, that enabled Mullins to mug Skelton on the final day.
Now, seemingly from out of nowhere, Mullins is at it again.
The Irish handler has registered just 29 wins over this season, dwarfed by Skelton’s massive haul of 159.
And even that does not compare to the126 victories recorded by the Skeltons’ Warwickshire neighbour Olly Murphy, whose tally of 126 wins from 521 runs is an outstanding strike rate of one in four.
But, in financial terms, it’s another story.
Despite hitting bar so often on day one at Aintree, with four runners-up spots, the Skeltons still banked £246,493 for three days’ work.
But that was all dwarfed by the £1,487,994 that came Mullins’ way – thanks largely to his sensational achievement of training five of the first seven finishers in the National.
Nick Rockett, ridden by Mullins’ son Patrick, won the yard £500,000, I Am Maximus (2nd: £211,100), Grangeclare West (3rd: £105,500), Meetingofthewaters (5th) and Minella Cocooner (7th).
Skelton still leads, but it is now by just a comparatively trifling £122,026 – and the bookies are now backing Mullins as the favourite.
Especially given his tone on the winners’ podium in Liverpool on Saturday evening, when the Mullins team made it quite clear that they fancy their chances of repeating last year’s success, starting with next Saturday’s Scottish Grand National.
Live on ITV, Mullins said confidently: “We’ll see you at Ayr, Perth, and as many meetings as there are between now and Sandown.”
When he won last year, Mullins became the first Irish-based trainer to lift the British title since Vincent O’Brien in the 1950s.
This time, to retain his title, you get the distinct impression, would give him even greater pleasure.
And, while the Mullins string are coming, you would also now imagine that the Skeltons are giving a lot of thought as to how many more races they can enter to give themselves a best possible chance.
While Skelton is sweating, his brother Harry came out of this weekend feeling a lot happier, £500,000 the richer.
That was the prize on offer in the David Power Jockeys’ Cup – a new sponsored initiative which came in this season for the jockey earning most accumulated points (for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in any race televised live by ITV between the Cheltenham November meeting and Aintree.
Harry, second only to champion elect Sean Bowen in the jockeys’ title race (131 to the Warwickshire-based Welshman’s 164, has that sewn up.
What price big brother Dan having a similarly big smile on his face at Sandown on 26 April?
Or will it be, for the second year running, a hard-to-suppress sporting loser’s scowl?
This week’s race meetings in the Midlands
Monday 7 April:
Wolverhampton (First race 2.35, Last race 6.40)
Thursday 10 April:
Hereford (First race 2.00, Last race 5.23)
Sunday 13 April:
Stratford-upon-Avon (First race 1.40, Last race 4.25)
