If ever a trainer looked destined to achieve success then Dan Skelton would be odds-on favourite.
The son of Olympic gold medal winner Nick Skelton, who has been at the top of the showjumping world for decades, Skelton has been around horses all his life.
His training career was founded upon both that equine-immersed upbringing and a nine-year association with Paul Nicholls and his team at Ditcheat.
Kauto Star, Denman et al
Dan Skelton takes out his own training licence
Ambitious, articulate, affable and with so much equine nous, it was no surprise when, in 2013, Skelton left Ditcheat with the blessing of Nicholls to pursue his own career as a trainer.
In a relatively short time that has proved to be a masterstroke as, from his Warwickshire base, he has gone on to bite the hand of the man that once fed him and plenty of others besides.
The Dan Skelton landmarks
Hitting the century mark for winners trained in a season for the first time in the 2015-16 campaign, he has now achieved that feat on six successive occasions.
By far and away his best to date was the astonishing 205 he sent out to win in the 2018/19 season, when his string amassed a total of £2,301,457 in prize money. He was only the second trainer, after that great record breaker Martin Pipe, to have achieved such a feat.
It is no surprise that such stats saw the Alcester-based handler reach 1,000 winners in very quick time, celebrating the feat in just his ninth season when Faivoir triumphed in the Windsor Horse Rangers Novices' Limited Handicap Chase at Ascot in November 2021.
Cheltenham Festival successes
Although Skelton has yet to find a major champion of his own within the yard, it seems a matter of when, not if, he will achieve such success in his own right.
He already has four Cheltenham Festival winners to his name, three of them in the County Hurdle (Superb Story, 2016; Mohaayed, 2018 and Ch'tibello, 2019), plus 2019 David Nicholson Mares' Hurdle winner Roksana.
Skelton stable stars
In Protektorat, My Drogo and Nube Negra, the Skelton stable now looks to have three horses who can genuinely challenge for major race honours and lift the yard to another level.
Dan's partnership with younger brother and now top jockey Harry Skelton, who passed his own 1,000 winner landmark a month earlier than his sibling, looks set to blossom and flourish in the years ahead.