Dan Skelton hails Gold Cup chance of “bigger, stronger and better” Protektorat
Horse racing trainer Dan Skelton believes Protektorat is “right up there” as a leading contender for this year’s “very open” Cheltenham Gold Cup.
The Warwickshire-based operator has experienced two Grade 1 successes with his improving eight-year-old chaser so far, most recently in the prestigious Betfair Chase worth nearly £200,000 at Haydock in November.
Despite his dominant display two starts ago, the Sir Alex Ferguson-owned gelding was a disappointing fourth of six in the Grade 2 Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham on Trials Day, however, Skelton is remaining extremely optimistic about his chances in jump racing’s grandest prize.
“I hold my hands up about Cheltenham, I just didn’t have him as fit as I thought he was,” the former assistant trainer to Paul Nicholls explained. “If we had gone into the race with me saying it was a ‘prep run’, people would have come out and said it was a lovely prep run.
“He obviously blew up turning in and stayed on from the back of the last – that wasn’t the plan as I hoped he would win. I’ve explained in full detail exactly why that run went like that.
“I am getting a little frustrated repeating myself as that was the case, and based on last year when he was third in the Gold Cup, he’s a bigger, stronger, and better horse this year – I think you all saw at Haydock how good he can be when he is at his absolute best. He’s a confirmed stayer, he stays the trip, he can get around the track, and he’s had that experience.
“Drying conditions are a concern, but the longer we go dry, the more certain it will rain! I’m planning on having a dry spell up to Nube Negra’s run in the Champion Chase and then it raining for approximately 20 hours from then until the Gold Cup,” joked Skelton. “If only life worked like that!
“He looks fantastic in his coat, his coat has pushed all the way through, and he looks absolutely magnificent.”
The Gold Cup this year could be a fascinating contest as 19 of the potential 23 entries would all be making their debut in the race, with one of them being recent Irish Gold Cup victor Galopin Des Champs for Cheltenham Festival top trainer, Willie Mullins.
The seven-year-old is the 13/8 ante-post favourite just four weeks out from the big event in March, and he is a horse that Skelton respects, but the five-time Grade 1 winning trainer is not scared of the battle.
“Obviously, Galopin Des Champs is a correct favourite as he got the trip the last day in Ireland – there’s a small question mark over the three-mile two [furlongs] at Cheltenham, which Willie is convinced he will answer positively, and I certainly have no reason to doubt the horse, trainer, or jockey for that matter – but what I’m getting at is that it’s a very, very open Gold Cup.
“On our best form, our Haydock form, we’re right up there as that’s one-pound short of being a season-leading performance on RPR ratings - I don’t know what the official handicapper says as I haven’t looked too much into it, but I hope we can all recognise his chance.”
The feature race on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival is not the only Grade 1 that Team Skelton will contest as two days prior, the Queen Mother Champion Chase will see Nube Negra have his second stab at the highly competitive contest.
Similar to Protektorat’s chances in the Gold Cup, the 37-year-old comes into the Grade 1 event with a strong hand against the best that the rest of Britain and Ireland has to offer.
“The Champion Chase is a very open race, everyone has beaten each other, everyone’s got reasons why they have got beat, and everyone’s got reasons for why they have improved,” continued Skelton.
“Obviously, Nube Negra won the Shloer Chase, which he should have done at odds of 1/10, then I actually think he ran really well at Kempton on pretty tacky ground which is not really his perfect ground – I’m not making an excuse on the ground as we were beaten by a horse [Gary Moore’s Editeur Du Gite] who was clearly superior that day with those tactics and he has gone on to frank the form significantly in the Clarence House Chase, so there’s nothing about the run that disheartens me, especially in the aftermath in what has happened since.
“This horse is very effective when he is very fresh, he is effective at Cheltenham, and the better the ground, the better his chance – if the Champion Chase was next Wednesday with this forecast, he would have to be a shorter price than he would be on any other ground.
“I think you can all see that if it’s a decent ground Champion Chase, he’ll be right in the shake-up, but even if it’s not decent ground and it’s Good to Soft, I think he’d still be bang there – we know that when it gets soft and heavy it’s completely against him, so hopefully we don’t get that again like we did last year!
“The reason why this horse is so good fresh is that he puts so much into his training, and he puts so much into his races – it’s not that he can’t do the bit in-between, it’s that he absolutely empties the tank when he races, and the training up to that is a massive effort as well. He’s not an unsound horse, touch wood, he’s actually very good with that, it’s just so hard for him to recover quickly.
“All of these horses at this distance in this race are all beating each other, so it’s a very unclear picture. We are very happy to have our hat in the ring and we think we can have him better than we had him at Christmas, which I think is a given due to the type of horse he is and how he performs when the sun’s out and the ground’s better.
“I think we are very positive. He’s going really well, his preparation has been very good, he’s been second in it before, and I’d love to try and go one better.”
As referred to by Skelton, both horses are preparing well ahead of their appearance on the grandest stage in racing next month, and it looks like the pair could have one final piece of work to complete ahead of their trip to Prestbury Park.
“They are all going to go for a racecourse gallop – we were due to go next Friday but that’s probably not going to happen because of the ground – so I’m probably going to seek permission from the team at Southwell to rough up the all-weather and then give them a day out there.
“For a lot of them, it’ll be a hard piece of work, but for some, it will just be a day out, for example, Protektorat will need a hard day, but Nube Negra will just need a day out.
“It’s unusual ground this and I’ve certainly never experienced a February like this before, so we’ve just got to do what we can in the circumstances. It’s important that they all get an away day, we’ve planned for that – we had plan A, and now we have plan B, so it’s all under control.”
