Dan Skelton: 'Next season I want to beat Martin Pipe’s record - and this is how I’m going to do it'

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Dan Skelton hasn’t even collected this season’s trainers’ championship yet – his long-time mentor Paul Nicholls will do the honours for him at Sandown next Saturday – but he has already set his mind to an even bigger target next term.

In a major interview for Sunday’s newspaper, Skelton has revealed that he is aiming for Martin Pipe’s all-time British record of 243 winners in a jumps season. Furthermore, he has even written down the number of winners he is targeting for every single month in order to get there.

It’s an approach that served Skelton well this term, when he worked out exactly what prize-money would be required every month in order to get him to the £4 million total he felt confident would finally see him hold off the challenge of Willie Mullins and become champion trainer.

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"If you asked me how I've been able to get my name on the trophy, I would say it's planning, planning, planning,” he said. “I knew we had to get to £4 million and I knew how we could do it. 

"I looked at it strategically, weekly and monthly, assessing every horse in the yard. I worked out how we could do it and then set about it.

"At every point in the season, I was able to see if we were on track – and we always were on track. In fact, we were well beyond where we needed to be."

His confidence in that was borne out of putting pen to paper.

The notebook page on which Dan Skelton mapped out how he would become this season's champion trainerCredit: Lee Mottershead (racingpost.com/photos)

"No-one else knows this," he said, before picking up a ringbound notebook opened at a page filled with numbers, showing the yard’s running total for each week and two figures in brackets, the first being his target for that particular date and the second stating what he believed was the required running total in order to hit £5m.

Mindful that the system has worked, Skelton has already documented a new row of numbers beneath three underlined letters 'MCP'.

"Next season I want to beat Martin Pipe's jumps record of 243 winners in a season," he explained. "I think chasing that record is going to be one of the hardest things we've ever done – but this is how I'm going to try to do it."

This time there are 12 lines in Skelton’s handwriting, each displaying a month and then how many winners Pipe trained that month in the 1999-2000 season. In brackets next to Pipe's figure is the number of winners Skelton aims to train, month by month. When added together, the total is 244.

"I've always looked forward," he said. "That's why I'm thinking about trying to beat Martin Pipe's record. We're a family of doers. It's ingrained in us. The day we got through £4 million, Dad [Olympic showjumping legend Nick Skelton] said, 'Well done. Can you get five?' 

"I sometimes find that exhausting, but I also love it because I had already thought it myself. It's a side of me I can't subdue or suppress."

Read more from Dan Skelton in The Big Read, available in Sunday's newspaper or online for Racing Post+ Ultimate subscribers from 6pm on Saturday.

Read these next:

Dan Skelton eyes the £5 million mark - so who are the key Saturday runners that could help him edge closer? 

It's Dan Skelton's world - and this could be one of his stars next season 

‘You've got to win in here before you can win out there’ - Skelton takes another victory in the ring with £435,000 Tattersalls Cheltenham April record 

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