Dan Skelton kept spending on Saturday when he landed Isaac Of York for €500,000 at Arqana’s Grand Steeple auction, extending a week of aggressive buying that has been built around one clear target: winners. He followed that with Kaiser Ball for £360,000 at the Goffs UK Spring Horses in Training and Point-to-Point Sale on Wednesday, after the horse was knocked down to agent Tom Malone.

By the end of Wednesday and Thursday’s sessions in Doncaster, Skelton and his bloodstock agent Ryan Mahon had signed for 20 lots at a combined outlay of £470,000. The biggest single purchase among those was Risky Obsession at £130,000, a horse Skelton said will go novice hurdling next year after a busy run through the bumper and point-to-point scene.

The buying spree matters now because Skelton is not shopping for the sake of adding numbers. The newly minted champion trainer has been clear that his eye is on Martin Pipe’s benchmark of 243 winners in a single season, a mark set in 1999-00 and one that has long stood as the standard for a dominant yard. That means these purchases are being judged not just on price, but on whether they can turn quickly enough to keep the stable’s momentum rolling through the summer and into the winter.

Skelton said the yard had made some purchases with summer and early autumn in mind, while others were bought as winter horses, and he added that the budget had been increased during the week to chase better summer stock. He said the aim was quality over volume, especially when competition is lighter, and pointed to the appeal of having horses that can win more than once rather than a larger group likely to land only a single race each. “We’ve bought a few that’ll run in the summer and early autumn and others that are going to be winter horses,” he said, adding that he felt lucky to have the owners and horses needed for the push.

Risky Obsession fits the plan in a way few purchases do. He won a Warwick bumper on New Year’s Eve before finishing sixth in competitive heats at Newbury and Aintree, and he had previously been owned by Craig and Laura Buckingham, who paid £190,000 for the youngster at the David Maxwell Dispersal. Skelton said he was “a lovely horse” and added that he is “for a syndicate of four existing owners who are taking a leg each,” before describing him as “an exciting horse” with “basically Graded form from his maiden.”

Kaiser Ball, meanwhile, was presented as the sort of horse that can pay off later rather than sooner. Skelton said the horse is a year older than many in the sale and called that “no bad thing,” noting that staying novice hurdles are often won by six-year-olds before Christmas and seven-year-olds after it. He said Harry Skelton was pleased with the horse after Warwick and recalled the rider saying, “This is a really good horse.”

The spending did not stop with the Doncaster sessions. Mahon and Skelton also combined to secure four lots at Monday’s Spring Store Sale, where their receipts came to £148,000. Put together with the later purchases, it leaves the stable with a major shopping bill and a clear message: Skelton is not waiting for his new status to settle before trying to turn a strong yard into a record-breaking one.