Darragh

🗣️ Dan Skelton on his handicap successes 'For me, it's all about planning, I love planning and I'm not afraid to admit that, but I don't plan because I'm a devious b****** People talk about plotting and targets but that's my job. A horse can generally only peak once a season, so I said to Bryan Drew and Jimmy Fyffe [owners] after Cheltenham that I couldn't guarantee Madara and Supremely West would be at 100 per cent for Aintree, where they ended up finishing third and fourth. My job now is to find a way to improve them next season. The horses have new marks, and if they go back to the track in the same form they technically shouldn't win, so you have to box clever. That's the skill of it.'

Having spoken with Michael Buckley, we’ve taken the decision not to run Constitution Hill at Newbury on Saturday. It’s very frustrating as we were keen to run, but after walking the course with George Hill this morning we felt the ground is just too quick for him — he’s a big, heavy horse and we couldn’t take the risk. He is in excellent form and we are desperately keen to run him before his summer break.