Dan Skelton tells us what it takes to train 200 winners in a season

It has taken a lot of hard work and consistency every single day. It can be very easy to presume that because you’re a big team that there is almost a factory floor approach to training. That couldn’t be further from the truth because every horse matters.

To get to 200 winners, every singleone counts and is important. The staff have been so professional, consistent,and brilliant in keeping up this incredibly high performance for the lasttwelve months. It’s remarkable.

I am very motivated by numbers. Ithink it’s the easiest barometer to set yourself because the numbers can’t lieand you get a direct bearing for where you are. I really enjoy that and thestability of that type of challenge.

Going forward, you don’t set out andsay; ok we are going to beat that record again because I think it wouldfrustrate everybody. We have to let this sink in before moving on.

We are going to celebrate this one.We are only the second trainer ever in the UK over jumps to get 200 winners.The other one was Martin Pipe which says exactly all you need to know about howdifficult it is.

Going forward, we need to keep up ahigh level of professionalism and dedication that we’ve shown this year and inyears before to try and maintain that level. If we can get to 200, fabulous!However, if we have 180 winners next year it’s not exactly been a bad year!

I won’t keep saying we will beat itagain every year because there will come a point when it becomes impossible todo it and you don’t want to frustrate yourself, your staff, your owners, yoursuppliers, and everyone by setting too many targets. Obviously I would like totry and do it again.

We want to increase our portfolio ofGrade One horses; we want to be having runners in the Ladbrokes Trophies, TheGrand Nationals, and so forth. We want to give everyone who supports us thedays they deserve and continue to give our horses the chance to achieve theirvery best.

If their very best is winning tworaces in the summer and reaching a mark of 100 then we want to do that. Iftheir very best is that they can reach over 160 and win a Grade One then wewant that to happen too.

We understand that every horse has acertain ability and every horse has a place in our team. I think people haverecognised that, instead of presuming we are just a numbers outfit. We reallydo try our hardest with every horse.

We won our first Grade One withRoksana, landed the County Hurdle with Ch’Tibello, reached 200 winners thisseason but it’s hard to pinpoint a highlight and what the exact moment was.

I remember back in the summer we werewinning with horses that we thought would never win and then you win with themand think that’s a remarkable team effort. Then you have a race like the CountyHurdle which we love targeting and to do that again was magic.

Roksana winning her first Grade One in strange circumstances was an unusual feeling but it still counted. Then to get 200 on a day when you have six winners was such a brilliant way to do it. We didn’t just trip over the line, the whole team ran through the tape and took it with them!

Dan.