Tale of the season: Willie Mullins looks set to get up on the line after coming with another perfectly timed run

Could we be about to witness one of the most perfectly timed runs of all time?

Dan Skelton has led the British jumps trainers' title race since flagfall in May all the way to the last day of the season, some 11 and a half months later. But with the finishing line in sight, Willie Mullins has come with a wet sail from absolutely nowhere in the final few weeks of the season to stand on the cusp of winning consecutive championships.

To draw comparisons with the tortoise and the hare would be wholly unfair on Skelton. He has not taken his eye off the ball one bit from start to finish.

Having maintained pole position through the summer, he became the first trainer to surpass £1 million in prize-money and by the end of November he was some £300,000 clear of old mentor Paul Nicholls.

Through December and January, Skelton turned the screw with a pair of Grade 1 wins – L'Eau Du Sud in the Henry VIII Novices' Chase and The New Lion in the Challow Novices' Hurdle – followed by Protektorat's valuable success in the Fleur de Lys Chase.

Before racing on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival, Skelton was well clear on £2,462,315, with Mullins in 56th place in the table in between Tom Symonds and Keiran Burke on £196,894.

Looking back now you can pinpoint the festival opener, the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, as the origin to the most remarkable of charges as Mullins got off to a flyer with Kopek Des Bordes.

Game changer: Kopek Des Bordes wins the Michael O'Sullivan Supreme Novices' Hurdle, the opening race of the Cheltenham FestivalCredit: Patrick McCann

Last season, victories in the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup were key to Mullins' title success and although this year he did not claim any of Cheltenham's four recognised championship races, he still managed ten wins across the week, the most valuable of which was Fact To File in the Ryanair Chase. In reply, Skelton came away from the festival with just one victory courtesy of The New Lion in the Grade 1 Turners Novices' Hurdle.

The gap between the two trainers had been drastically reduced, but Skelton was still nearly £1.3m clear of Mullins at the end of Cheltenham with no real sign of what was to come. In fact, shortly after the festival Skelton was priced at 1-10 for the title and with Mullins trading at a peak 12-1, Coral decided to close their book.

They were forced into opening it again, though, as Mullins fired in a Grade 1 four-timer on day one of the Grand National meeting at Aintree.

Going into the £1m National, Mullins was a 5-1 shot for the championship but the pendulum swung in the most dramatic of ways when Nick Rockett led home a 1-2-3-5-7 for the trainer to net a prize-money haul of £860,000.

In all, Mullins collected £1.5m from his eight winners at Aintree and, following his National heroics he was cut to 4-6 for the title with Skelton, who surpassed the £3m mark for the first time in his career during Aintree, at 11-10.

The battle was well and truly on now and Mullins hastily assembled an army of runners for Ayr on Scottish Grand National day and completed the National double for the second year in a row with Captain Cody, after which his odds plummeted to 1-10.

The trainers have continued to trade blows around Britain in the last fortnight, but with Skelton's lead now so slender and Mullins holding so many aces on Sandown's £685,000 finale, the multiple Irish champion looks poised to get up on the line in the most spectacular of finishes.

Read more on the trainers' title race:

Trainers' championship showdown: a race-by-race guide to Sandown's epic title conclusion between Dan Skelton and Willie Mullins 

'We'll have to have a go. We'll see you at Ayr, Perth, and as many meetings here between now and Sandown' - the trainers' title in quotes 

'I know exactly what he’s going through' - the inside track on the title contenders by those who know them best 

This is not the first time the trainers' title battle has gone down to the wire - and this one is better-tempered than some 

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