‘It’s not easy to find these worldies and maybe he’s one of them’ - Dan Skelton bullish about Champion Hurdle favourite The New Lion

Dan Skelton has said “there isn’t a ceiling” for last season’s brilliant Cheltenham Festival winner The New Lion, who is the general 4-1 favourite to ascend to the highest echelon with victory in the Champion Hurdle as he leads Skelton’s bid to finally claim the British trainers’ championship.

Skelton was speaking to the Racing Post for a major interview in Sunday’s newspaper as he starts to take the wraps off the team of winter horses he hopes will help him finally dethrone Willie Mullins, who has agonisingly pipped him to the crown in each of the last two seasons.

Winning one of the sport’s elite prizes – all of which have eluded Skelton – would no doubt help in that regard, and by far Skelton’s best hope looks to be The New Lion, who has won all four of his races over hurdles, culminating in a smooth victory in the Turners Novices’ Hurdle in March.

The Champion Hurdle is now the goal for JP McManus’s six-year-old, although Skelton is in no mood to map out exactly how he might get there, with only a reappearance run in the Fighting Fifth confirmed as being on the agenda.

“He'll start in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and hopefully we'll go down the Champion Hurdle route,” he said. “I'll not be drawn at this point of the year to say he'll run here, here and here and then change our mind 72 hours out. 

"We'll be doing things we're really happy with only for the right reasons. I won't set out a path now – we want to start in the Fighting Fifth if the ground is all right and we want to end up in the Champion Hurdle.”

The New Lion: beat strong Irish opposition in the Turners Novices' HurdleCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Skelton feels there is improvement in The New Lion, adding: “If there's anything that took us by surprise last season, it's how he just kept progressing. You have those plans for a lot of horses, but it's not often they go right. He's a pleasure. I don't think I've ever seen him put his ears back. Hopefully he can have a long career. It's not easy to find those worldies and maybe he's one of them."

Asked how high his ceiling could be, Skelton replied: “There isn’t a ceiling at the moment – he’s got the opportunity to take it wherever he can go. He’s done everything we’ve asked. He stays well, he handles Cheltenham. 

"He’s potentially the best I’ve trained, but what makes great horses is their longevity, which is never a given. You have to work hard at that and, ultimately, they do have to be a little bit lucky as well.”

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.

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