£5-MILLION NOW A CERTAINTY, A HUNDRED WINNERS FOR JONES, JUDGE COCKS-UP.

Earlier in the week I was of the opinion that Dan Skelton would fall short of winning £5-million in prize money. I was wrong; it is now, after winning here, there and everywhere this week inconceivable to think he will not achieve his latest ambition. It was Willie' world last year, now it is the Skelton world in which we are blessed to be a part of. The big question is when these two worlds collide next season, who will get to rule the universe? Dan, like Willie, is almost impossible to dislike but his success is not down to his affable nature or willingness to be interviewed but to planning, planning, hard work from his team, determination and yet more planning.  Winning a race at every racecourse in Britain is not only a unique achievement but testament to his no stone unturned approach to his job. At Sandown Park today he fires the final bullets of his campaign and though it is a competitive card, it takes no imagination to think he may end the season with another 3 or 4-winners. Strangely, though, in what is weakest Bet 653 Gold Cup (or is Bet 365?) since the original title Whitbread went the way of the greatly regretted, there is no Skelton representative, which is thoughtful of him, allowing someone else a decent winner in a season which he has ruled supreme.

Ben Jones is a favourite jockey of mine. I love his attacking style and the way the horse beneath him jumps as if it is their greatest enjoyment in life. Two-weeks after the event, he continues to criticise his ride on Jordans in the Aintree National, setting off for home too early and being mowed-down by I Am Maximus and nutted on the line by Iroko for second. What is typical of the man, Joseph O'Brien was not in any way critical of Jones, telling him in the unsaddling enclosure it was a brilliant ride, something the keyboard warriors need to dwell on. Jockeys, as we know, are only human; they make mistakes, as you and I both do. If Jones is clever he will have learnt a lesson and become a better jockey for it. A man, you must remember, who never makes a mistake, never makes anything of himself. A man who continues to make mistakes, who never kearns the lesson, is prone to become a keyboard warrior. Jones has ridden 102-winners this season, proof, if proof were needed, to remind us all of his talent in the saddle.

If a jockey drops his hands and gives away a race, he will invariably receive the punishment of a long suspension. It is always something that has annoyed me that a jockey will be more severely punished for giving a horse an easy race by not asking it for full exertion in the final few yards of a race than if he exceeds the maximum amount of hits with his or her whip. That aside, yesterday at Perth, the judge called the wrong horse the winner of the final race, only making right his error an hour later. The B.H.A. will doubtless hold an enquiry, the outcome of which will be a rap over the knuckles for the judge and told to do better in the future. I would suggest the judge should be subject to a similar length of banishment from the racecourse as would a jockey found guilty of dropping his hands before the line and loses a race he should have won.