How dad's recovery from bad fall inspired Skeltons to success

WHEN the showjumper Nick Skelton suffered in a fall in 2000, his then-teenage son Dan’s first reaction was to run to the spooked horse, rather than his stricken father.

- Matt Majendie

“Working with horses, they sometimes bite you, kick you or you fall off,” says the trainer. “The vast majority of the time, the person that gets bitten, kicked or falls off jumps back up. Dad didn’t.”

Skelton Sr’s neck was broken and he was told he would never ride again. Dan’s brother, Harry, nearly four years his junior, never doubted his father would get back in the saddle, though, and remembers bouncing up and down on his hospital bed when he visited him.

“It never occurred to me how bad it was,” recalls the former champion jockey. “He’s your dad, he’s invincible, he’ll be fine.”

Skelton Sr sought far and wide to find a doctor who would finally allow him to get back in the saddle, although he fell off his first time riding properly, before going on to win Olympic gold in 2016; at 58, Britain’s oldest Olympic champion for 104 years.

“He always tells us it’s not what you achieve in a day, a month or a year,” continues Harry. “It’s what you achieve in a lifetime.”

The boys’ father has passed on a drive that both share in their differing roles in the riding world, as well as an obsession for winning. “It’s like a drug,” says Harry. “You just want more.”