Shishkin has been handed the Timeform squiggle following his refusal to race at Ascot on Saturday.
The racecard symbol denotes a horse who is “unreliable for temperamental or other reasons” and was given to Nicky Henderson’s star following his weekend antics.
He swerved the Betfair Chase for the Berkshire Grade Two contest and was sent off the 8/13 favourite. However, having initially refused to line-up with the other horses, he proceeded to plant himself when the tapes went up.
In their report on the Nirvana Spa 1965 Chase, Timeform said." Shishkin had hammered the winner in their Ascot Chase clash last season but planted himself at the start and took no part in their rematch, this perhaps not entirely surprising in hindsight, that he was tried in headgear despite a win at Aintree on his final start last season suggesting connections had some concerns about his attitude; he's still a brilliant chaser on his day but has to be treated with caution for the time being."
Timeform’s chase handicapper Phil Turner argues the nine-year-old isn’t typical of a horse to be given a squiggle.
He said: “To be honest, Shishkin is something of a rarity – most of our high-profile squiggle horses down the years have been awarded the symbol for throwing things away at the end of their races, not the start!
"For example, the likes of top-class hurdlers Bird’s Nest, Gaye Brief and Harchibald were wonderful servants for their connections who won a stack of big races, but they were sometimes let down their finishing displays in races they seemed set to win and this rendered them hard to predict from a punting viewpoint.
“By contrast, Shishkin has displayed tremendous battling qualities for several of his biggest wins, being notably strong at the death when winning the 2020 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, pipping Energumene in the 2022 Clarence House Chase and then for his latest success in last season’s Aintree Bowl.
“This clearly sets him apart from those other names mentioned and, given that backdrop, there is always a possibility that Saturday’s antics will prove to be a one-off.
"However, if we’ve got no idea whether he’ll actually set off or not next time – and by the sound of things Nicky Henderson is similarly uncertain – then he clearly has to be viewed as a risky betting proposition for now, and a squiggle is our way of alerting our subscribers to that fact."
Horses can lose a squiggle too. Tiger Roll carried one with him into his National Hunt Chase win at Cheltenham and it disappeared - never to return - following his first Aintree triumph a year later.
With a current master rating of 176, Shishkin is the highest-rated chaser in over 30 years to be given a squiggle.
Others with a pre-race master rating of over 160 and a squiggle are listed below.
- Tidal Bay (174)
- Kingscliff (173)
- Our Vic (168)
- Twist Magic (168)
- Escartefigue (168)
- Albertas Run (168)
- Wishfull Thinking (166)
- Challenger Du Luc (166)
- Cyrname (166)
- Outlander (164)
- Samcro (162)
- Sybillin (162)
- Ollie Magern (162)
- Weird Al (162)
- Turpin Green (161)
- On His Own (160)
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