Skelton will have keen eye on The New Lion’s rivals over Christmas

Dan Skelton will be a keen observer of the key two-mile hurdling events this Christmas, but is confident he holds an ace card in the division in The New Lion.

The Cheltenham Festival winner will sit out of the festive action in favour of a run at Prestbury Park in late January, with the likes of Lossiemouth and Sir Gino amongst others poised to state their Champion Hurdle credentials.

The Lodge Hill handler admits the division has a wide-open feel with State Man ruled out with injury and both The New Lion and Constitution Hill falling in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle.

“We’ve got to get through Trials day, but after what I saw at Newcastle I’m very happy with what I’ve got,” said Skelton.

“You might look at me and go, ‘Dan he ended up on the floor, how can you be happy’, and of course I’m not happy about that bit, but I’m just happy by how fast he can go.

“I didn’t know that if he was going to handle two-mile speed like a proper championship two-miler, but the speed he went, he can go fast, and I’m not worried about that now.

“It made the picture 100 per cent clearer in my mind and of course we’re disappointed to end up on the floor but you need to take positives out of negatives and the one thing I took out was how fast he can go and I needed to know that.”

He went on: “The best thing is for us to go to Trials day because it’s a track that will suit him more, it’s left-handed and there’s a little less emphasis on speed which I don’t think was our nemesis, but you have to think, it was good, good to soft and they were flying.

“It will be nice to go back to Cheltenham in January with it a little softer, get a clear round in and then we head off to the Festival with happy faces and give it our best – it’ll be a Champion Hurdle, it will be hard.

“It looks an open picture, but my read on it is that Lossiemouth has got herself to the top of Willie’s (Mullins) list and Nicky (Henderson) is still umming and ahhing a bit about Sir Gino.

“If Sir Gino goes and wins a Christmas Hurdle then he is probably going to stick down that route and Nicky has said, by his own admission, he doesn’t have another one.

“I will watch on and probably be a bit whatever, because it isn’t going to change our approach and what we do, but it will be interesting.”

Joining The New Lion with a watching brief over the coming weeks is Skelton’s Betfair Chase hero Grey Dawning, who is also slated for action on Trials day in the Cotswold Chase after his trainer decided against stepping into the lion’s den at Leopardstown.

Skelton added: “He’s really well and will go the same day as The New Lion. The only difference being I wouldn’t run him if it was heavy.

“I really wanted to go to Ireland, really wanted to go. But I just thought to myself, if we’re ever going to win a Gold Cup we need to have the perfect preparation this year and perhaps crossing the Irish Sea at a time when flu vaccines are in the air, it might not be the smartest mover ever.”