My tips for Cheltenham

Dry January it wasn’t and I am not referring to the trainers who normally undergo an annual abstinence but who abandoned the effort this year in sheer frustration at racing’s woes. The unrelenting downpours that have seen a whole string of race meetings called off through waterlogging struck again last weekend. Cheltenham, which had already lost its New Year’s Day fixture to the weather, had to call off its Trials day too, the last scheduled fixture before the Festival in March. With so many opportunities lost for testing individuals’ mettle round the Gloucestershire Valhalla’s undulations and gradients, there will be an extra question mark dangling above many Festival entries this year.

Fortunately for the most exciting horse in training, the race Nicky Henderson had selected for novice chaser Shishkin was the Grade Two Lightning Novices’ Chase at Doncaster, where racing did take place. Through his long history handling the likes of See You Then, Sprinter Sacre and Altior, Nicky has grown accustomed to the pressures of preparing superstars burdened with huge public expectation, but he has never come to enjoy them. Handling such horses is the equivalent of carrying a priceless Ming vase from one end of a gallery to the other across a recently waxed and polished parquet floor. As he says, there is everything to lose as they run necessary prep races, and very little to gain. But while the previous weekend Nicky’s popular Champion Hurdler Buveur D’Air had been beaten into second on his return from injury, Shishkin earned full marks with yet another impressive display, fencing impeccably, cruising into contention when asked by rider Nico de Boinville, and coasting clear after the last. It is hard to see last year’s Supreme Hurdle winner getting beaten at this year’s Festival.

It would be difficult to find a greater contrast with Henderson’s mighty 150-horsepower Seven Barrows yard than the eight horses in the Jedburgh, Roxburghshire stables of busy Harriet Graham, who combines training with being clerk of the course at Musselburgh and Hamilton Park.