Jump Trainer of the Year

JUMP

TRAINER of the Year

GORDON ELLIOTT

PAUL NICHOLLS DAN SKELTON

WILLIE MULLINS

THE NOMINATIONS

BY KEVIN BLAKE

GORDON ELLIOTT PAUL NICHOLLS

Gordon Elliott’s rise up the National Hunt training ranks has been one of the most remarkable stories of recent decades in Irish National Hunt racing. The son of a panel beater who was no more than an average jockey at best, he clearly had his eyes and ears open when working for Tony Martin and Martin Pipe, as his fortunes were transformed in no uncertain terms when he turned to training.

Indeed, perhaps only a young Aidan O’Brien has enjoyed a rise through the ranks to compare to Elliott’s in terms of its speed and impact, for having burst onto the scene by saddling Silver Birch to win the Aintree Grand National in 2007, having not trained a single winner in Ireland at that point, he was firmly established as a top five trainer in Ireland by the 2010/11 campaign.

Elliott’s progression has been relentless and he soon emerged as the biggest challenger to the dominance of Willie Mullins. Indeed, he pushed Mullins all the way to the final day of the season in the trainer’s championship in both 2016/17 and 2017/18, training a remarkable 210 winners in Ireland in the latter campaign. While he came up just short of Mullins in the championship on those occasions, he did have the satisfaction of getting the better of him at the Cheltenham Festival, where he was top trainer both years.

Last season saw Elliott secure multiple accolades, but without question the highlight of his campaign was the remarkable achievement of Tiger Roll. Not only did Tiger Roll gain his second win in the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, and fourth Festival win in all, he made history by becoming the first horse since Red Rum to win two Grand Nationals on a day that will never be forgotten at Aintree.

Paul Nicholls has been at the top end of the British National Hunt training ranks for the better part of 20 years now, and one of the things that makes him so unique amongst top-class racehorse trainers is how unapologetically competitive he is.

There is no other trainer on the Flat or over jumps that is so open with how much he wants to win and beat his rival trainers. The drawnout and often fiery battle he had to wrestle the trainers’ title away from Martin Pipe was the stuff of legend and when he finally did it in 2005/6, there was no hiding just how much it meant to him.

Since then, Nicholls has added 10 more trainers’ titles to his tally and has made no secret of the fact that beating Pipe’s record of 15 is something that drives him on. Since Pipe has retired, Nicholls’ main rival has been Nicky Henderson and they have engaged in some terrific battles in recent seasons.

It is those more recent seasons that have perhaps illustrated Nicholls’ talents better than any other. He hasn’t had the same sort of horse power that he had from 2007 to 2013, but despite a lack of stars, he absolutely maximised what he had and has been champion in four of the last six seasons.

Last season saw Nicholls return to something like his pomp at the highest level, saddling six individual Grade 1 winners, with the most memorable of them perhaps being Frodon in the Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. He has an array of talent to go to war with in 2019/20, and promises to be hard to knock off his perch at the top.

DAN SKELTON

As a son of legendary showjumper Nick Skelton, Dan Skelton was always an odds-on shot to be involved in the horse business, but while many with his pedigree may have rushed into a training career, Skelton didn’t rush his education. He spent nine years learning his trade as assistant trainer to Paul Nicholls at the height of his most dominant years, and it is paying off.

Since he was first licensed in the 2013/14 season, Skelton has risen relentlessly through the ranks, registering increased tallies of winners and prize money each season. This culminated in him saddling no fewer than 205 winners for over £2.3m in prize money last season. He is only the second trainer to saddle more than 200 winners in a jumps season, after Martin Pipe of course.

Last season was also notable for Skelton in that it saw him secure the first Grade 1 win of his career when Roksana won the Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. As if that wasn’t enough, he went on to enjoy yet another County Hurdle success at the Festival with Ch’tibello.

A notable feature of Skelton’s operation is how much of a family affair it is, with his brother Harry and Harry’s wife Bridget Andrews riding over 90% of the winners that Dan has saddled under National Hunt rules in his career.

All the evidence suggests that Skelton, who is still just in his mid-30s, will continue to rise up the National Hunt ranks for many years to come.

WILLIE MULLINS

Willie Mullins is simply a phenomenon of the National Hunt training ranks. While he has been considered a top trainer for well over two decades, claiming the first of 13 Irish Champion National Hunt Trainer titles in 2000/01, it has been since 2007/08 that Mullins has taken his performance to previously unheard-of levels.

In February 2013, with over two months of the season remaining, he broke Aidan O’Brien’s record haul of winners in a season of 156 in 1995/6, and he eventually went on to record a remarkable total of 193.

Not content with dominating the domestic scene, Mullins came within a whisker of becoming champion in Britain too in 2015/16, when he was foiled only narrowly by Paul Nicholls.

The emergence of Gordon Elliott as a serious challenger to his dominance has only served to drive Mullins on to even greater levels of achievement, with him raising the bar for winners in an Irish season with a sensational record-breaking tally of 212 winners in 2017/18.

After seeing off a very serious challenge from Elliott for his crown in 2016/17 and 2017/18, Mullins reasserted his position as the clear top National Hunt trainer in Ireland last season despite struggling with the health of his horses for a significant part of the winter months. He trained 207 winners and broke his previous record for domestic prize money by securing over €6.2m.

Besides his success in Ireland, he underlined his position as the most successful trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival by securing another leading trainer title at a meeting highlighted by a long-awaited first win in the Gold Cup with Al Boum Photo.