The realm of horse training is often reserved to elite establishments that have spent decades, if not centuries in the game. There are plenty of trainers on the younger age of the scale, though, who have firmly made their marks in recent years, and increasingly, it’s the younger bucks who are challenging the status quo.
Dan Skelton is among this generation and has started to have some major successes in the last few years after setting up his stables in Warwickshire in 2013. The likes of Skelton are helping to make horse racing appeal to a new audience, so it’s great for the sport in the long run.
A Rising Star in Horse Training
Skelton is no longer just considered a promising newcomer in training, with his recent record speaking for itself. He now has 11 Cheltenham Festival winners under his belt, with many of these coming in the last two years. In consecutive years, 2023 and 2024, Langer Dan won the Coral Cup. Skelton had three other major wins in 2024 at the iconic meet, with Unexpected Party, Grey Dawning, and Protektorat as well.
Last year, Skelton’s The New Lion bagged the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, and Grey Dawning picked up another major win more recently in the Betfair Chase, the meat in a 3 week sandwich that has included a Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham and Coral Gold Cup at Newbury. Skelton’s form has been incredible in the last few years, with his strike rate hovering around 18 per cent. He was among the highest-earning trainers in terms of prize money last year too, highlighting how his wins have been coming in quality competitions.
The inspiring thing about Skelton is that he isn’t an overnight success story. His performances in recent years are a result of careful planning and horse selection, along with consistent and innovative training methods.
Helping to Make Racing Appeal to a New Audience
Skelton is helping to make horse racing more appealing to a whole new audience, as he has proven that you don’t need a centuries-old operation to achieve success in the game. He’s part of a new wave of trainers that are less rooted in tradition, and open to incorporating technology in their methods.
Indeed, there are clearly changes afoot in the sport, and this evolution is necessary for it to live long into the future. Along with forward-thinking trainers like Skelton, there are ways for people to get into horse racing via digital means. For example, there are digital horse racing platforms that allow people to train virtual horses. There are even horse racing-themed online bingo games like Big Horsey Fortune and Gold Horsey Winner. With all these diverse options easily accessible, it shows that there will always be new ways to encourage people to get into horse racing.
New technology will help with this as well, with virtual reality potentially set to give people new ways to enjoy horse racing. Developers in the industry often try to recreate real-world experiences, so there’s a strong chance that there will be a rise in virtual race days that make users feel as if they are at the track.
Skelton’s rise to the top has been slow and steady over the last decade, but now his methods are clearly paying off. He’s one to keep watching in the years ahead, and he’s likely to pick up many more major wins.
