The numbers that show how Dan Skelton finally won the title - and that the Willie Mullins production line is slowing down

A chat with James Willoughby is always good for the brain, and I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to chew over the next frontiers in form study with him last week. My main takeaway was that we can start to pursue predictive measures, rather than think of the past and future as two dots we punters must join using our wits alone.

As Willoughby put it last week, using past performance makes it all too easy to fall into the trap of 'telling stories', rather than making predictions. As the current jumps season comes to a close, let us mark our position with the facts. Otherwise we may start telling ourselves stories, rather than dealing with reality, when we come back to the winter game.

The story has it that Dan Skelton has finally wrestled the British title from Willie Mullins by force of wile. He has been smart enough with his handicappers to get so far ahead of Mullins that the latter decided to stop fighting on his eastern flank and focus on retaining his title in Ireland. Even Skelton himself, in Sunday's Big Read with Lee Mottershead, felt the need to deny he was, in his own words, "a devious bastard".