Dan Skelton Saturday runners blog: 'The only thing we didn't do is win the championship'

In his first exclusive blog with Ladbrokes since April, Dan Skelton runs horse racing fans through his runners Market Rasen, as well as his plans for the year.

Mostly Sunny - Market Rasen - 14:05 race odds

Riskintheground, Doyouknowwhatimean, Shakeytailfeather - 15:12 race odds

God's Own Gateaway - 15:50 race odds

It's been a good late spring for us; we had a strong May and early June, but because we ran so many in April, we were always fairly confident these early months were going to be a bit slower than usual for us. Obviously, we had to try and win everything we could to beat Willie [Mullins], which meant we had to bring a lot of horses forward into April. That's obviously had a knock-on affect, but we've still done really well and had some nice winners.

Last year is behind us now, but we look back on it as a great year. The only thing we didn't do is win the championship. It was our best ever season to date, and it was frustrating to get beat on the last day but that's always a possibility when you're taking on Willie. But we're amassing a team who we feel are getting stronger and stronger. 

This year, hopefully we've got The New Lion heading down the Champion Hurdle route, and we've got some really good novices. We've got some great horses going novice hurdling and chasing. We’ve still got the likes of Protektorat, Grey Dawning and L'Eau du Sud in there as our open chasers so we know we've got as strong a team as ever, if not stronger. But we're going to need them all if we're going to get the better of Willie. 

At the moment, they've just come back in - they're not really doing anything other than trotting and steady cantering every third day, so they're a long way off starting to show anything. But we know enough about them, from last year's performances, and the way they look after a good summer, and that there's a lot of ticks in the boxes.

We'll try and break up our team; have an October/early November team, and then an end of November/December team, and from there we'll see where we are for the spring, and we'll know which ones we want to keep for that period. It's an exciting year ahead for us.

I'm looking forward to their big day at Market Rasen on Saturday. Starting with Mostly Sunny - who we're claiming seven off as he's gone up ten pounds since his last win in April - hopefully he'll have a fair chance here. He's been consistent, winning a valuable race at Plumpton and finishing second at Sandown next time out. He's done very well this spring, but the handicapper has had his say... hopefully 7lbs off gives us a chance.

We've got three runners in the big one, the Summer Plate Handicap Chase. Harry [Skelton] rides Riskintheground, who won two good races at the back end of last season and has had a nice break since then in preparation for this. The trip and track, and everything should be perfect - how he can compete now that the handicapper has had his say, time will tell. The last run he had was at the end of a pretty busy spell, but he's had a bit of time off since then, so he should be pretty fresh and ready for this. 

The other two are actually out of the handicap - we thought it would be worth trying Doyouknowhatimean over the trip. Harry Atkin takes seven off here as well and we just thought this was worth a go, with a lot of money up for grabs. We've trained Shakeyatailfeather for this - it's a bit irritating that she's so far out the handicap, but Tristan will ride her and take three off, giving her a little bit more weight back. She's been very consistent for us, so hopefully she can outrun her odds.

We then run God's Own Getaway in a handicap chase - he's pretty consistent. He hasn't won for a while, but hopefully the fact he's been banging on the door for so long, means it'll open pretty soon for him. There's no reason why he can't go and run his best race here.

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