Six to Follow From the Stables of Jump Racing’s Top Trainers
With 50 winners on the board, Dan Skelton leads the 2024/25 Jumps Trainers’ Championship title race. The competition began on May 4th and runs until April 26th 2025. However, the jumps season truly kicks into gear following flat racing’s St Leger meeting. With that festival in the history books, it is time to focus on the 2024/25 National Hunt season.
It is not Skelton’s winners that see him currently top the table; the Jumps Trainers’ Championship is based on prizemoney won. He is clear of Olly Murphy, Peter, and Michael Bowen in this sphere, too. Last season, Willie Mullins became the first Irish trainer to land the British championship in 70 years.
Gwennie May Boy has shown amazing progress since joining Dan Skelton; there should be more to come during the 2024/25 jumps season. ©Getty
Festival Is Party Time for Title Chasers
The 2023/24 title race went down to the season finale at Sandown Park, but when the final calculations were made, Mullins, with 28 British winners, netted £3,326,135 in prizemoney. It put him £344,716 ahead of his nearest challenger, Dan Skelton, who amassed £2,981,419 from 120 winners and almost 400 placed runners.
As the figures suggest, the key to success in jumps racing is ‘big winners’; with a few rare exceptions, nothing is bigger than a Cheltenham Festival winner. Willie Mullins has trained 103 Cheltenham Festival winners during his career, and Skelton, who began training in 2013, has trained ten.
Will Skelton, who trained a record four Festival winners in 2024, prevail in the forthcoming title race? Mullins looks assured of collecting a lot of silverware at Cheltenham and, always competitive, will do his best to retain his crown. Of course, Paul Nicholls, third in last season’s standing, will be keen to land the prize for a fifteenth time.
Six of the Best From Three of the Best
Ultimately, it is the horses that will do the talking. To that end, here are six horses, representing the three big championship contending stables, that our experts predict will take a major prize or win some significant prizemoney during the coming season.
WHAT A FINISH!
A true battle but the bigger of the two, Kalif Du Berlais get up on the line to beat the brave Givemefive in the Grade 2 Coral Adonis! @PFNicholls pic.twitter.com/LgMIUHpWNB
— Kempton Park Racecourse (@kemptonparkrace) February 24, 2024
Kalif Du Berlais: Paul Nicholls
Following this four-year-old’s victory in the Coral Adonis Juvenile at Kempton, Paul Nicholls said: “He might have to go chasing next season. He’s absolutely a smart prospect – one of the nicest we’ve had for a long time to go chasing”. For a trainer of Paul Nicholl’s calibre, with so many great champions that have passed through his hands, to make this statement means everyone should take note.
At the time, the French-bred that won his only start in his native country was three-from-three. His final outing of 2024 came in an Aintree Grade-1 juvenile hurdle, where he finished third behind Nicky Henderson’s unbeaten Sir Gino. Nevertheless, Kalif Du Berlais’s run style indicated he already needs more than two miles.
A fascinating prospect for the 2024/25 season, Kalif Du Berlais is sure to be cleverly campaigned throughout the forthcoming season and should more than pay his way.
Jubilee Alpha: Paul Nicholls
An impressive winner on her debut in a big-field national hunt flat race at Wincanton, Jubilee Alpha subsequently beat all but one home in a Grade-2 ‘bumper’ at Aintree. A half-sister to a Willie Mullins-trained three-time winner, this five-year-old mare should be placed to win more than one decent novice hurdle during the 2024/25 season.
Gwennie May Boy: Dan Skelton
Rated 113 when leaving Jonjo O’Neil’s stables, this six-year-old hurdler has been transformed since joining Dan Skelton’s yard. Three runs in six weeks during the spring of 2024 produced three hugely impressive victories and has seen Gwennie May Boy’s rating rise by 24 pounds. There should be loads more to come, especially with the switch to the bigger obstacles being a distinct possibility.
Nurse Susan: Dan Skelton
Last seen in January, when this seven-year-old mare took her tally to four wins and a second from six starts over hurdles, Skelton has always held this mare in high regard. Even before her latest victory, he told Racing TV: “I think Nurse Susan could be as good as any of the other novice chasers we have. She has always been a chaser, and she ran some good races over hurdles, not least behind Harry Fry’s good mare Love Envoi a couple of times. I just think she has got the lot.”
An absence is a concern, but if Nurse Susan returns to the racecourse this season, it would be no surprise to see her extend her current winning sequence over hurdles or novice chases.
Kiss Will: Willie Mullins
No trainer has more strength and depth in his stables than Willie Mullins. His enormous establishment is a warehouse full of winners waiting to happen. Many future champions are easy to identify and have already been winning on the biggest stages. There’s no imagination involved with recommending one of these as a horse to follow.
Former jockey and now Mullins’ assistant trainer, David Casey, has provided a helpful insight into one new inmate that has yet to run in Ireland but cost €280,000 when sold at auction in France. Speaking to Boylesports, Casey gave a favourable report about Kiss Will. He is better placed than many to know a good horse when he sees one; his judgement should be respected, and this is a youngster to follow.
🟡 ⚫️ Sixth in the Triumph Hurdle, Salvator Mundi wins by half the track @tipperaryraces pic.twitter.com/BXkzLzEYyJ
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) May 15, 2024
Salvator Mundi: Willie Mullins
Collecting over £14,000 for finishing second in his only start in France in April 2023, this youngster joined Mullins later in the year and made his stable debut in Cheltenham’s Triumph Hurdle in March. Strong in the betting, he finished sixth despite not always jumping fluently.
Seen just once since – when winning a 13-runner maiden hurdle by a jaw-dropping 62 lengths in May – there is untold potential in this four-year-old. By a sire that has produced Champion Hurdle winner Epatante and multiple Grade-1 winning chaser Allaho (also trained by Mullins), a big prize should be in Salvator Mundi during the coming season.
