If there’s a familiar sense of deja vu around this season’s trainers championship, it’s because Dan Skelton has been here before.
With the victory line in sight and firing on all guns, he sent out winner after winner, only to be pipped to the post by Willie Mullins.
This time, though, the numbers and the calendar say it really is his title to lose.
The concept is simple. The trainer who earns the most prize money in Britain over the course of the season wins. Winners, seconds, thirds, and even those who pick up crumbs in big-field handicaps all add to the pot.
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For years, the title was the preserve of the great British yards. Martin Pipe holds the record with 15 titles, and while you may think that is unbeatable, Paul Nicholls has spent years catching up and now sits on 14 titles, just waiting for another great season to equal the record.
Willie Mullins then smashed that pattern by becoming the first Ireland-based trainer since Vincent O’Brien in the 1950s to be crowned champion in Britain.
Skelton, based in Warwickshire with brother Harry as stable jockey, has turned that dominance into a genuine Anglo-Irish rivalry, and he has twice found out how cruel a prize-money championship can be.
Twice Pipped by Willie Mullins
In 2023/24 Dan Skelton looked home and hosed. He had a lead of more than £1 million heading into the Grand National meeting, only to watch Willie Mullins strike with I Am Maximus in the National and claw back a huge chunk of the deficit in one afternoon.
By the time Sandown was done, Mullins had edged past to become Britain’s champion trainer for the first time, an achievement hailed as historic on both sides of the Irish Sea.
The sequel in 2024‑25 somehow managed to be even more wrenching for Skelton. Once again, he led for much of the season, but had to watch as Mullins not only landed the Grand National for the second year in a row, this time with Nick Rockett, but also train five of the first seven home, cutting his deficit by around £860,000 in one race.
With a win in the Scottish National and a ferocious late run from the Closutton team that included Grade 1 wins, dominance in the Celebration Chase, and a Sandown Gold Cup clean‑up, Mullins had passed Skelton by just under £200,000, earning a second successive British title and leaving Skelton with another runner‑up spot.
Skelton Back With A Vengeance in 2025/26
You’ve got to hand it to Dan Skelton for picking himself up and dusting himself down just to come back and do it all over again in the 2025/26 season.
With plenty of valuable, if painful, lessons learned, he adjusted his campaign, ran fewer horses in early summer, and then unleashed a relentless, numerically strong team once the core jumps season kicked in.
The result has been a season so productive that he has already rewritten the record books.
By late March, Skelton had become the first jumps trainer ever to break the £4 million barrier in British prize-money in a single season, blasting through the mark at Newbury.
At the time of writing, the official standings have him on 168 winners and a little over £4 million, comfortably clear of Nicky Henderson in second and with Willie Mullins only third in the British table.
Crucially, his lead over Mullins is now a shade more than £2 million, which is significantly larger than the cushion he failed to defend last season. All going well, it looks like Skelton will finally get his hands on the championship trophy.
That said, he is not exactly shouting from the rooftops and knows all too well how quickly things can go awry. With Aintree and Sandown still some way off, he does at least concede that the title is “more probable than it’s ever been”.
What’s Left To Win?
Between now and the Sandown finale lie the Cheltenham‑afterglow Saturdays, Aintree’s riches, and the jumps finale itself, which can collectively move seven figures’ worth of prize-money.
Skelton, though, is not sitting on his hands. One of the more intriguing subplots is his plan to run Panic Attack in the Grand National, the race that so brutally turned the tables against him in 2025.
It is hard to script a neater bit of symmetry: the horse whose very name could describe Skelton’s last two weeks of the season is now tasked with turning the National from nightmare into security blanket.
He may only have one runner, up against the nine that already have secured spots for Mullins, but sometimes, that’s all you need.
If he can combine his usual spread of handicappers and graded performers at various meetings over the next few weeks, he would not just protect his lead but potentially push his earnings to a mark that even a Mullins hot streak could not threaten.
Nearly In The Bag
Nothing is formally sewn up until the last prize is paid out at Sandown, and Skelton knows better than anyone how quickly a seemingly unassailable lead can shrink when Willie Mullins starts racking up big‑race wins.
Yet all available evidence suggests that 2026 will finally be the year he is called champion trainer in Britain.
If and when that happens, it will mean more than one yard getting its moment with the trophy. For jump racing, which thrives on characters and grudges seasoned with respect, that sounds like a result everyone can live with, even if one man in Warwickshire quietly enjoys it a bit more than most.
