Cheltenham Festival 2023 focus | Can Shishkin rediscover his mojo?

By Ben Linfoot

10:57 · THU February 16, 2023

The real Shishkin has not been sighted on his last two racecourse appearances, but could Saturday’s Betfair Ascot Chase be the launchpad to Ryanair Chase glory?

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Two-mile trip really to blame for the dip?

“Shishkin has been racing as though he wants further to my eye,” says Nicky Henderson at a press call at his Seven Barrows yard this week. “I hope I’m right, otherwise I’m going to be doing an awful lot more supplementing!”

In typically ebullient fashion, Henderson sums up the problem that is Shishkin. And it doesn’t sound like he’s 100 per cent convinced himself that Shishkin has simply needed a trip all along.

How could he be? This is a horse that won eight races in a row at distances around two miles, including a Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, a Sporting Life Arkle, a Doom Bar Maghull Novices’ Chase, a Ladbrokes Desert Orchid Chase and a SBK Clarence House Chase.

True, in the Supreme he needed every inch of the trip. But in his novice chases he looked in cruise control over two miles and it was the same story when he smashed up Greaneteen at Kempton in his first go in open company.

Then came the Clarence House and the battle with Energumene. A race for the ages and one he pulled out of the fire, from the future Champion Chaser, no less.

But perhaps it left a mark on him. It certainly looked more than just the very soft ground that did for him at Cheltenham, where he didn’t look comfortable from the moment he was ridden away from the first fence.

Nico de Boinville claimed he noticed the warning signs flashing even before the start and he pulled him up after the eighth.

Cue a major M.O.T. A rare bone condition was diagnosed. Henderson described it as a 'strange problem, but a mendable one', but with the Celebration Chase ruled out of the equation racing fans wondered when they would next see Shishkin again.

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Sprinter blueprint gives Shishkin hope

Their answer came in the Tingle Creek nine months later at Sandown Park and he was a laboured 15-length third behind Edwardstone. Henderson said his jumping kept him in it but he made a hash of the Pond Fence. This was more encouraging than in the Champion Chase, but vintage Shishkin it was not.

A few weeks later he made a noise in his work. A scope revealed a flipped palate and a second wind operation was deemed necessary. So were entries for the Ryanair Chase and Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup - but not the Champion Chase.

Bones and breathing. These physical issues could easily be to blame instead of the trip. Perhaps he’s simply not the horse he was?

It's time to find out. When he tries 2m5f in the Grade 1 Betfair Ascot Chase on Saturday, we’re going to get a good idea of which model of Shishkin Henderson has got on his hands heading into the spring.

The nine-year-old has been more (un)Reliant Robin than the purring Ferrari of old on his last couple of runs, but Henderson has been there and done it before with a couple of successful engine tweaks on a star horse and none more so than when he rediscovered Sprinter Sacre’s spark.

Sprinter Sacre’s form figures in open company were 1-1-1-1-1-P-2-P-2-1-1-1-1 with that blip in the middle coming following the diagnosis of an irregular heartbeat and it took Henderson two years to get his brilliant two-mile chaser back in the winning groove.

The patience and skill involved in resurrecting Sprinter Sacre’s career following such a serious physical issue was one of the triumphs of Henderson’s four decades as a trainer and that, more so than anything else, gives hope that Shishkin can bounce back to winning form at the highest level.

Ascot test and the Ryanair

In the minds of bookmakers and punters, at the time of writing, he’s not the most likely winner of the Grade 1 Betfair Ascot Chase this Saturday with Fakir D’Oudairies the 5/4 favourite against 5/2 Shishkin.

Those last two below-par runs, the only times he has been seen in the last 11 months, are rightly at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

But he could bounce back. And Fakir D’Oudairies is the perfect horse for Henderson to test his newly-tweaked Shishkin against. After 77 days off, over a new trip, after a wind op, there’s talk of a tongue-tie, too, on what could be spring-like ground, Shishkin lines up against a brilliantly consistent horse but not a consistently brilliant one.

Joseph O’Brien’s eight-year-old has won four Grade 1s and has registered a Timeform adjusted rating of 177 four times, his best number.

For comparison Shishkin returned no figure in the Champion Chase and 167+ in the Tingle Creek. But at his best he ran to 181+ twice and 190 at Ascot against Energumene. At his best Fakir D’Oudairies can’t live with him, but you can almost set your watch by last year’s winner of this race so he’s a super barometer.

If the tweaks work and Shishkin travels with his old verve, proving himself at the intermediate distance at the same time, and giving Fakir D’Oudairies an honest beating, the general 4/1 quotes for the Ryanair Chase will be long gone. In an Allaho-less year, he’ll be clear favourite. A top of his game Shishkin looks the one horse who could blow that race apart.

So perhaps Henderson’s eye is right. Maybe he did need a trip all along. After all he’s won a point-to-point and is a half-brother to a 3m1f hunter chase winner.

And he was also one of two sons of Sholokhov that took the 2021 Cheltenham Festival by storm. They had the racing world at their hooves back then. The other, Bob Olinger, looks a shadow of his former self. We haven’t got enough evidence to say the same about Shishkin yet, but this weekend is an absolutely massive one for him.

More in the series

February 8 - Can Paul Nicholls bounce back at the Festival?

February 1 - What are the main Dublin Racing Festival pointers?

January 25 - Trials Day: Who will be the Festival plunge horse?

January 18 - Can Dan Skelton step up at this year's Festival?

January 11 - Who is Willie's Sporting Life Arkle number one?

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