The 81-year-old told Sporting Life in an exclusive interview that he also expects him to eventually pass his landmark of 15 champion trainer titles.

But Pipe, a man credited with revolutionising jump racing, said he will wish him well, along with old rival Paul Nicholls who is closing on another landmark.

"Records are made to be broken," said Pipe, who is still a central figure at the Somerset yard where son David took over the training licence 20 years ago.

“Skelton is very good at planning races.  He’s got loads of runners, probably more horses than I had in those days, so good luck to them.

“Eventually, I’m sure he’ll beat my championship record, but he’s got a few years to go and I won’t be around to see it."

Skelton, who clinched his first championship in April, is chasing the 243 victories set by Pipe in 1999-2000, the first season where the finale came at Sandown in late April, rather than Stratford at the end of May, meaning Pipe achieved his feat in just 11 months.

Rated a 4/6 chance by bookmakers earlier in the year, no odds are offered on Skelton now, with the 41-year-old having already sent out 109 winners – three times as many as his nearest rival.

"I didn't realise I would set these records and I'm very lucky that I still hold some," said Pipe.

"I never really thought about breaking records. I wanted to do what was best for the horses and run them when they had a winning chance."

He spoke about his extraordinary career in a wide-ranging conversation which covered bookmaking, famous gambles, damaging headlines and a game-changing approach.

'I slept with the racing calendar'

Skelton has set a target for winners each month, and while Pipe is adamant he never focused on records, the master of Pond House was the master of targeting races.

"I slept with the racing calendar. I took it to bed every night and went through all the races," he recalled.

"I can remember kicking up the bedsheets and my wife Carol saying: 'What are you doing?' and I'd say: 'He's won this race, he's won this race.'

"In those days we had to do the entries three weeks in advance and I'd get really excited, imagining a horse had won this particular race. I'd get it wrong loads of times. but sometimes get it right."

Martin Pipe

Pipe’s career as a jockey ended with injury and just one Point to Point winner.

He said he knew nothing about training when he took out a licence on land owned by his bookmaker father David, who had 45 betting shops around the south west of England.

But his attention to detail - honed by compiling betting ledgers - and a curious mind saw him approach from a new angle, focusing on interval training (short sprints and recovery) for horses, daily blood tests, treadmills, weight and temperature checks.

That helped him know when horses were fit and ready to win, and helped secure top handicap races such as Cheltenham's big chase in November now known as the Paddy Power Gold Cup and the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow.

Pipe’s eight victories in the Cheltenham race included two for Cyfor Malta during the 1996-2005 period when he landed seven of the 10 runnings, while he saddled Cyborgo to win the Stayers’ Hurdle in his first run of the season.

With his bookmaking background, Martin Charles Pipe – or  MCP to his pals – liked the odds when a bookies' bonus was introduced for winning the Imperial Cup at Sandown and any race at the Cheltenham Festival just days later.

No other stable has pulled It off, but Olympian, Blowing Wind and Gaspara all did the double for the yard near Wellington, netting a total windfall of £175,000.

Cyfor Malta winning the 2002 'Thomas Pink Gold Cup'

"We thought before Christmas that Olympian would do the double," said Pipe.

"I decided to give him a little prep run at Stratford. He jumped off in front and had gone about three hurdles and I'm crying in the stands, really upset - 'Why did I run it? Why did I run it?"

It was a week before Sandown, and Olympian won by 12 lengths under Jonathan Lower. After landing the Imperial Cup, he was rated 14lb higher than earlier in the month.

"I’d won the Imperial Cup but I was worried about Cheltenham (Coral Cup). He got a penalty and I thought 'You idiot, you shouldn't have run him at Stratford.' But he won both so he must have had more in hand than I thought."

Plots, headlines, jockeys – from Cauthen to McCoy

Success came at a price, with the Somerset trainer’s career hit by unfounded allegations of blood doping, which he blamed on others jealous of his dominance.

The Cook Report devoted an episode to the yard but found no evidence of wrongdoing and the same applied after a dawn raid by racing’s then rulers, the Jockey Club.

“I don’t think some people liked an outsider winning races,” he reflected.

“I definitely wasn’t doing anything wrong, all I was doing was getting the horses fit. It was a really difficult time, it really was."

Pipe was bruised by negative headlines and endured tragedy on the track – bold-jumping Gloria Victis was put down after a late fall in the 2000 Cheltenham Gold Cup and Valiramix suffered a fatal injury in the Champion Hurdle five years after Make A Stand’s 1997 triumph.

But Pipe kicked on from the setbacks, enjoyed watching his horses use an equine swimming pool that acted as a ‘weightless gallop’ and boasted a team including former table tennis champion Chester Barnes who helped charm owners.

Over 30 years, Peter Scudamore, Richard Dunwoody and AP McCoy were all stable jockeys who became champions.

At Cheltenham in 1998, when Unsinkable Boxer left the parade ring for a handicap, Pipe told McCoy he was on the biggest certainty ever at the racecourse.

“Unsinkable Boxer just won so many races. I knew he had something in hand and really fancied him. I said to AP you can’t get beat,” said Pipe.

Leading jumps trainers Gordon Elliott and Venetia Williams are Pond House alumni as are Ralph Beckett, Ian Williams and Tom Dascombe on the Flat.

One surprise recruit was American jockey Steve Cauthen, the only rider to have won both the Kentucky Derby and the Derby at Epsom, who rode Royal Regent to victory at Royal Ascot having been first booked last-minute for a midweek selling race at Windsor.

“We fancied it, we backed it, but he must have wondered who these idiots in wellies were. He won and came back beaming with a smile on his face,” said Pipe.

“Afterwards he said: ‘Martin, keep yourself in the best company and your horses in the worst’.”

The ‘Kentucky Kid’ also won the Great Metropolitan Handicap at Epsom on Pipe’s 66-1 Triumph Hurdle winner Baron Blakeney.

Titles, rivalries and a cheeky move

It took Pipe 14 years from his first victor, Hit Parade at Taunton, to top the trainer charts.

He said: “My father said well done and he was very proud of me. He died in 2002. He always said: 'You can do anything if you work hard at it'”.

In 17 seasons from that first title in 1989 to his last in 2005, he reigned supreme 15 times with only ‘The Duke’ David Nicholson interrupting that run twice before Nicholls came along and a rivalry was born.

In his autobiography, Nicholls said he was “in the mood for violence” after his stable star See More Business – who won the race a year later – was effectively carried out of the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup by the Pipe-trained Cyborgo.

Trainer Paul Nicholls

On the day Nicholls was presented with his first title (and 13 have followed since) Pipe stole the show by dramatically announcing his retirement earlier in the day.

But there was a touch of Kevin Keegan v Sir Alex Ferguson about it all. Pipe loved it, really loved it, when he denied Nicholls the title on the final day of the 2005 season. Now they are on good terms.

Final stats are being checked, with the Ditcheat trainer only a few winners away from reaching Pipe’s record of 3,930 jump racing winners.

“We were very competitive. Nicholls told me recently he wasn’t far away so that’s bound to go,” said Pipe.

He learned from fellow trainers and admitted taking samples of horse feed – for comparison purposes - when visiting different yards.

“I used to go round to other trainers to see what they were doing. They were all very welcoming,” he said.

“I went to Henry Cecil’s at Newmarket. I’d get some samples and stuff it in my pocket. I’d analyse it, and Henry’s was good.”

A grand triumph for the punters’ pal

Pipe took bets on the Grand National from other pupils when at school and analysed Vincent O’Brien’s three consecutive wins in the 1950s as he looked for clues on how to train the winner himself.

He landed the Aintree marathon in 1984 with Miinnehoma while son David repeated the trick 24 years later, thanks to Comply Or Die in the blue and green colours of the stable’s big backer David Johnson.

Miinnehoma wins the Grand National under Richard Dunwoody

Millions watched the National and the fact Martin Pipe’s winner was owned by Freddie Starr elevated the result, albeit the comic was unable to be at Aintree.

“It meant I had the glory, really. The following day I was walking along and just went out of my way to go round a road sweeper and he said: ‘You’re Martin Pipe, aren’t you?’ It was amazing to be recognised by people,” he said.

The record-breaking trainer’s favourite song is Norman Wisdom’s ‘Don’t Laugh At Me Because I’m A Fool’. You sense he had greater empathy with road sweepers than more privileged individuals and he enjoyed being asked by punters to pass on tips.

“I would say it would win and I loved it when they did. I just liked giving people winners,” he smiled.

Pipe’s records that once seemed impassable are now threatened, but his place is racing folklore is assured.

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