Mr Hope Street

The Skelton yard has sent out 194 winners this season alone, which is a remarkable operation, and Mr Hope Street is one of its reliable contributors. Harry Skelton, Dan's brother, rides him most often — they have teamed up 14 times together and won 4 of those races, a win rate of 29%, or just under 1 in every 3.5 rides. That kind of consistency between horse and jockey usually means the team knows exactly what they are working with.

What they are working with, it turns out, is a horse that takes time to understand itself. After his first win at Market Rasen in April 2024, Harry Skelton was candid: the extra distance helped, but the penny still hadn't really dropped. He called it a big, backward horse — raw, still figuring things out, very much a work in progress. That is a striking thing to say about a winner, but it speaks to genuine potential rather than a horse who has already shown everything he has.

Dan Skelton has since pointed to the switch from hurdles to fences as another step in that same journey. On his first run over fences at Carlisle, the pace was fierce and Mr Hope Street was simply outrun early on — taken off his feet by a field going faster than he was ready for. Skelton's read was straightforward: go further. Three miles, he said, is where the horse will find himself.

His recent form backs that up — the last six runs read 1-4-3-6-3-2, with the win coming most recently at Aintree, one of the most famous racecourses in the world. He has won mostly at Class 4 level, two wins from seven races at that grade, which is solid but not spectacular — yet. The trainer's confidence that there is more to come, combined with a horse who only won his first race in April 2024 and is already adding to that tally at Aintree two years later, suggests the story is still being written.