Rising star The New Lion snapped up by JP McManus

Challow Hurdle hero has been sold to JP McManus, with previous owner Darren Yates stating his intention to leave racing at the end of the season.

The six-year-old has won each of his four starts for Dan and Harry Skelton, with a debut victory in a Market Rasen bumper in the spring followed by a hat-trick of wins over hurdles.

He was hugely impressive when successfully graduating to Grade One level at Newbury over the festive period, giving Yates and his wife Annaley their first taste of top-level success.

Yates has invested huge sums in buying racehorses, most notably spending £620,000 on Interconnected, who failed to win a race afterwards.

However, in a deal that appears to have been brokered by fellow owner Paul Byrne – who has previously sold several of his own horses to McManus – Yates has decided to let go of his prized asset.

Detailing the reasoning behind the decision on Nick Luck’s Daily Podcast, he said: “At the start of the season, Annaley and I made a decision really that we were thinking of getting out of racing altogether.

“Different things in our lives, grandkids – times change. But when I spoke to Dan (Skelton) about it, he said ‘look, for the first time ever, you’ve got a superb team. You’ve got the likes of The New Lion and Cherie d’Am. You could sell them all now in a dispersal, but you’re not going to get the value’.

“I said ‘OK, I’m prepared to crack on’, and obviously that was a risk as well, as a horse is only a day away from getting injured. I said to Dan ‘let’s try to make a target of trying to win a Grade One’ and he said he thought it was definitely achievable with the ammunition we’ve got.”

Yates revealed the decision to sell The New Lion to McManus has been in the works for some time and that he gambled on him winning a Grade One to maximise his value.

“I’ve been very loyal to Dan and he’s been amazing – him, Harry (Skelton) and the whole team. And if any of my horses went to the sales, you don’t really know where they end up,” Yates continued.

“This developed because Paul Byrne, who is a very good friend of mine from Ireland, he was really badgering me after The New Lion won at Chepstow. He loved the horse and asked if I would like to sell him, I said I’d like to continue and see if we can win a Grade One. He said that was a big risk and I said it was my risk.

“What I do know from being in racing myself is you can’t buy a good horse like this – they just don’t exist. Or if they do exist, they never come up for sale.

“Paul came to me again, as he really believed in the horse, as I did, and I think from what I see, he has an amazing relationship with JP. I think JP is a very private man, there’s a lot of trust there with Paul and I said this would be private between us if we do a deal.

“One of the things I asked Paul to speak to JP about was that Dan would carry on training and that Harry would carry on riding. JP, as a gentleman, said that wouldn’t be a problem moving forward.

“Without Paul Byrne, the deal wouldn’t have happened. I wasn’t really interested in going to the sales and I like the way it’s happened.”

While The New Lion will be carrying the green and gold silks of McManus going forward, Yates revealed he retains a ‘bonus interest’ in the son of Kayf Tara, who is expected to head straight to the Cheltenham Festival in March.

He added: “The deal massively suits JP and massively suits me. I’m not going to go into it obviously, because JP wanted to keep it private, which is great with me, but it does give me an interest in the horse moving forward as well. Let’s call it a bonus interest, depending on what he does in the future.

“I think JP was happy to do that and I was happy to do that. Even if I didn’t have a kicker, I’m not the type of person who’d sell a horse and want it to do badly – I’m desperate for him to win at Cheltenham.”

Yates still owns several other horses with Skelton, including the high-class mare Cherie d’Am, who is bound for the Grade Two Trustatrader Hampton Novices’ Chase at Warwick on Saturday.

However, she too looks set to go on the market at some stage, with Yates citing the treatment of owners as one of the major factors in his decision to leave the sport.

“Because I’ve sold The New Lion, by the end of the season I’ll be out totally,” he said.

“The experience of the day is amazing and winning a Grade One was amazing, but they’re very short-lived when you look at all the other things you have to put up with in racing.

“I think the owners are never looked after properly. I would think once I’m out, I’m out.

“You spend a lifetime looking for a horse like The New Lion, but I just don’t see the value in it – I’m not sure where the sport will end up.”