FEATURE SPOTLIGHT ON HORSES
SHISHKIN “I’ve got a three-miler on my hands in Shishkin now. The King George VI Chase will be our first main objective, but he will obviously have a run before it. Two of the three times he has been beaten over fences have come at Cheltenham, otherwise he has been nearly flawless. “He was very good at Aintree when we stepped him up to three miles. He has been finishing his races really well and he jumped very well that day at Aintree. “I didn’t originally think we would end up over this sort of trip, as we started off in the Tingle Creek, but he blatantly got outpaced. It became perfectly obvious he wasn’t a two-miler, but he was still good enough and he misled us a bit by being very good in things like the Arkle, however he blatantly stays. “Let’s see how he gets on first before we start thinking about the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He is a true Grade One horse, there is no doubt about it. The race at Aintree was a good race and he produced a good performance.”
MARIE’S ROCK “She will have a look at those nice mares’ races and then the Stayers’ Hurdle. It didn’t quite go her way at Aintree over the extended three miles but she was very impressive on New Year’s Day at Cheltenham in the Relkeel Hurdle, and she did win the Mares’ Hurdle at The Festival the season before, so she was entitled to be doing something like that. “The one race that went wrong for us at Cheltenham last season was the Mares’ Hurdle. We ran three in the race and I couldn’t split them. “I thought it was one of our strongest races of the meeting, bar the Champion Hurdle. I would have thought you might possibly be looking at this as her last season, but one never knows. “She is racing for a syndicate and Middleham Park are probably more interested in racing as opposed to breeding, but we will see how she goes. “I very much would like to think there is another big race inside her.”
WALKING ON AIR “I’ve always liked Walking On Air and I can’t believe he is not going to make up into a decent horse. I don’t think he had a lot of luck in the Pertemps Final at Cheltenham and he had no luck in running at Punchestown. He will go over fences this season and be a three-mile novice chaser. “I still think we haven’t seen the best of him yet. He got no run coming down the hill at Cheltenham then he travelled like a good horse at Punchestown and he kicked the third last out of the ground and then made a shocking mistake at the second last. He couldn’t finish a race like that doing what he did. He is not an obvious one but he looks fantastic. “He is rated 138 over hurdles, so the handicapper must think he is okay. Once he jumps a fence I think he will be okay. I would say we would start him off back over either two-and-a-half miles or two miles-six, as three miles is a long way to go first time out for a novice chaser.”
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