StableTalk: Dan Skelton talks through his Newcastle and Sandown Saturday runners

1.35 Newcastle – Corrin Wood

He looks like he’s got his act back together. It’s a small field, we’ve put the cheek pieces on him and it’s the first time Harry has ridden him. He’s got to run well but it has been a long time since he won. We think he’ll run a big race.

2.10 Newcastle – Island Confusion

It’s Island Confusion’s first run for us. He’s a maiden over hurdles and fences. I thought we’d start him out in a handicap hurdle. He goes nicely at home and jumps nicely too. He likes a bit of cut in the ground so he should go well. I’m not saying he’ll win but we’d expect him to run well.

1.50 Sandown – Savello

Savello is struggling for a bit of form this year. He was last in a three runner race and picked up eight grand so that worked out well. The handicapper probably needs to help him. Harry felt he was going well when he fell at Cheltenham, but he’s struggling for form at the moment. We’re running him again after eleven days and hoping he’ll bounce back in to form soon, and hopefully before long we can win another race with him. We need the handicapper to relent. He didn’t win a handicap last year; he won a weight for age race.

If they are going to have Veteran’s Chases, perhaps they should have them at two miles as well as at three miles, for horses like Savello? That said, personally I’m not a great fan of Veteran’s Chases. Those older horses get the best of both worlds as they can run in any normal handicaps, and then can also run in these Veteran’s races which are worth plenty and then have a £100k final. We need younger horses coming through as that’s the cycle of racing, and the prize money there to encourage owners to invest in our sport. The masters series in Tennis and Golf don’t have prize money similarities…

Most of the horses are having a quiet week now as nearly all of them have had their flu vaccinations. We decided this time last year that we do this, so we gave all the horses their flu vaccinations on the same day, on the second of January, apart from those running 2nd-14th January. I won’t be running anything next week, apart from a few on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Basically over the next fortnight it’s going to be a quiet time for us as we let the horses get over their flu vaccinations and then we’ll kick on.

Dan

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