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“There were some times that were very rough,” Harry Skelton says calmly as he remembers a defining period of his life when, as boys, he and his brother Dan found a way to cope with the slow death of their mother from alcoholism. “A lot of families have gone through worse but it was, at times, really hard and it was evident what was going on.”
At their sunlit yard near Stratford-upon-Avon, the Skelton brothers are deep in preparation for this week’s Cheltenham festival. Last year Harry rode four winners, which were all trained by Dan, and their prospects for more success over the coming days are high. Dan looks likely to end the season as champion trainer while Harry is second in the jump-jockey standings and on course to win the inaugural David Power Jockeys’ Cup which, using a points-based system for races televised on ITV, awards the leading rider a staggering £500,000.
So there is neither anger nor bitterness when Skelton addresses a distant trauma. Instead, he is reflective and perceptive as he charts how he and his brother found light amid the gathering darkness of their mother’s illness: “We were just kids and it was out of our control. But we got on with it and we had ponies and chickens and entertained ourselves. I think that’s why me and Dan are so close, because he’s always been there for me. He’s four-and-a-half years older and he’s supplied me with a fantastic career and made me what I am today.”
Did their mother understand that her boys were on a path to racing glory? “No, I don’t think so. We were at Paul Nicholls’ yard when she died. I was 16 and I’d just started riding. My mum and dad [the Olympic champion showjumper Nick Skelton] had split up when I was two. We went to live with my mum and then, when I was around 10, we moved back to Warwickshire to live with Dad. In the last three years we’d probably become a bit more distant. It was tough but we were young and ambitious. We had a very driven father and we were like that as well. We were very focused.”
Skelton’s hero as a young jockey was AP McCoy and like the great champion he refrains from drinking alcohol. “I’ve seen both sides of drink, obviously,” he says. “It got the better of my mother and so it was a bit of both in terms of her and AP’s influence. It can do wicked things to people and I never wanted to go down that road. And, growing up, I wanted to be AP McCoy. So I didn’t drink because AP didn’t drink. I thought: ‘If that’s the sacrifices you have to make, I’m up for that.’”
His addiction, like McCoy’s, is to winning. Skelton pauses when I ask if he savours his winners? “It’s so hard as a jockey. I go to the races sometimes and out of six rides I’ve had trebles, four-timers, five-timers. But as soon as one race is finished, if you ride a winner, your job is done. That’s what you were meant to do. All that’s relevant is the next one, half-an-hour later.”
The 35-year-old nods wryly. “Our game’s very good at keeping your feet on the ground and keeping you in the moment. As a jockey you can’t get too ahead of yourself because you get beaten a lot more times than you win. And it’s the losing that’s hard to get over. They ‘override’ the winners. Failure hurts.”
He is such a likable and intelligent jockey that it seems important to linger over his four winners at the Cheltenham festival last year. “We had two winners on two days, on the Wednesday and Thursday with a double both days. I always dreamed of going there to win Grade Ones and having doubles because I grew up watching Ruby Walsh riding winners left, right and centre. When you get a taste of that you just want more and more.
“There’s an expectation now, this year, and that’s different. But if people are expecting you to have winners, you’re doing something right. If you’re not having any pressure you’re not training the right horses, you’re not riding the right horses. And this year there’s more pressure, more expectation. But hopefully we’ve got the team in its best form and we’ll deliver.”
Skelton skips through their list of rides and the chosen horses ring out with winning promise. “L’Eau du Sud has got a great chance on the first day, in the Arkle. He’s got a lot of good form and ticks most boxes. Willie Mullins’ Majborough is just ahead of us, the favourite, but he’s only had two starts over fences. We’ve got a big chance there.
“I’m also really looking forward to riding Protektorat in the Ryanair Chase. He’s in great form and two-and-a-half miles around the New course at Cheltenham is made for him. It’s a stiff finish and stamina really comes into play and he has every chance.”
Be Aware is the favourite with numerous bookies in the Coral Cup and Skelton says: “He’s got a really big chance. At two mile five, it’s going to bring out some more improvement and he goes in really fresh.”
He also namechecks Take No Chances in the Mares’ Hurdles and Catch Him Derry in the Pertemps Network Final – but he and his brother know they have a long way to go before matching the might of the Mullins yard. “We’d love to do that in years to come. We want to win as much as we can and, down the line, go to Cheltenham and challenge Willie for every race possible. We’re working towards that.”
Ambition and resolve pump through the Skelton yard and it makes sense that Sir Alex Ferguson should be one of their owners. They shared a stunning victory with Ferguson when Protektorat won the Ryanair Chase last year. It’s moving to hear Skelton read the message Ferguson sent him when he became champion jockey in 2021. After the old manager praised him in intricate detail Fergie ended his note with these words: “You have to stay at the top of the mountain. You have been given that winning feeling. You cannot go back.”
The Skeltons are close to fulfiling their primary goal of the season. “The objective to start with this year was to try to make Dan the champion trainer and it’s looking good,” Skelton says, with his brother almost £600,000 clear of Paul Nicholls in second place.
In his quest to become champion jockey for a second time Skelton is 23 winners behind Sean Bowen but he makes a telling point: “I’d love to be champion again but it’s going to be difficult to catch Sean. He’s had more than 200 rides [more] than me. My strike rate is better but I just ride for Dan. I’m so involved here that I don’t really get the option for many outside rides. I wouldn’t want it any other way because I absolutely love working with my brother.”
There is also the large compensation of the half-a-million pounds Skelton will surely win as he is 52 points ahead of Harry Cobden in the David Power Cup. In financial terms it’s the equivalent of a jockey winning 10 Grand Nationals and Skelton agrees that “it’s a life-changing amount of money. That doesn’t usually come along for a National Hunt jockey.”
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How will he use the money? “Bridget [Andrews, his wife and former jockey] and I have a little boy. Rory is 10 months old and that money can really help with his future education and upbringing. A lot of people have helped me and I would like to be able to give them something back. Racing’s been fantastic to me so I’d like to give something back to racing – whether that’s one of the charities or somewhere else in the industry that’s given me so much.”
Skelton’s love of racing and his shared bond with other riders is evident in his emotional reaction to the death last month of Michael O’Sullivan, the young Irish jockey. “It’s awful. Just horrific for his family, his friends and weighing room colleagues. A lot of jockeys live on their own and we talk to each other. We’re like a family and, suddenly, he’s not there. For the person that sat next to him every day at the races, it’s very tough.”
He looks up, his eyes burning with intensity. “Being a National Hunt jockey is not glamorous. We choose to do it but it’s very dangerous and we walk the tightrope every day. There’s just something in us that makes us willing to take that chance. I suppose it comes down to the taste of victory, and the adrenaline of riding, that makes us a little different.”
Bridget has won races at the Cheltenham festival and so she understands the thrill and risk of racing implicitly. But did O’Sullivan’s death make them consider the dangers in a new way? “No, not at all. Of course it would be unfair on Rory if Bridget was still riding. She misses riding the Cheltenham festival winners but she says now that her job is to be the best mother to Rory, and that’s exactly what she is. We know it’s a tough sport.”
Skelton, who is much more charming and urbane than most jockeys, slips back into the amusing stereotype of the driven iron man when describing his reaction soon after the birth of Rory. “He was born at 10 past five in the morning and I left at 10 past 10 to go to Sandown for five rides.”
What might have happened if labour had been delayed? “I’d have told her to push quicker,” Skelton says, channelling his inner McCoy. But his wry smile reveals that he is joking.
“Rory was born after four days of labour – or should I say four days of torture for Bridget. It was an emergency C-section and thankfully everything was good. But Bridget knew that my brother was chasing a trainer’s championship. I’m not sure how many wives would understand that I had to go five hours after the birth to do my job. But as long as Bridget and Rory were all right, which thankfully they were, there would never have been a conversation about it. Bridget knew I had to go and she wanted me to support Dan and ride winners.”
When Bridget and Rory pop in to say hello it’s obvious that Skelton is smitten with them. “They mean everything to me and it’s the same with my dad,” he says. “We speak every day and we’re very close. And then there’s my grandad. He’s 95 and he calls me every day on the way home from racing, whether we’ve had a winner or a loser, and he’ll tell me what I’ve done wrong. He gets so much pleasure from our success but he lets me know what I could have done better. But that’s family – they’re your toughest critics as well.”
Skelton smiles as the painful memories of his mother’s illness retreat still further. Surrounded by his wife and son, his brother, father and grandfather, Skelton adds one last line with winning clarity: “Family is everything.”
Harry Skelton leads the David Power Jockeys’ Cup. Visit greatbritishracing.com
