Dan Skelton has trained 158 winners this season and he has given the lowdown on his success ahead of this year’s Cheltenham Festival, as he looks to go to battle against the likes of Willie Mullins for the next four days.
« When you win, there are two things,’ he told the Daily Mail. « The first is relief because, let’s be honest, sometimes (in sport) you win when you shouldn’t. Everyone looks at the result and tells you: ‘well, you should have done’ – look at how it was when Tiger Woods was collecting all those Majors.
« It probably even got into his head at some stage: ‘Well, I should win’. Now, I’m not comparing myself to Tiger Woods, by the way. That would be absolutely ridiculous. But if you are sending out an odds-on favourite, as we have been doing, all people are expecting is for it to win.
« But the euphoria of winning can make you miss the lessons you should have picked up. You learn more in defeat than you do in victory; you also learn from defeat what you shouldn’t have done (in a race or preparations) and that’s good. Sometimes you do things wrong and you still win.
« That can be really dangerous as well because you think to yourself: ‘I’ve got away with it’ – and there is no worse trait than to keep thinking you have got away with something. You’ll keep doing the wrong thing and eventually it will catch up with you. »
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