When Nicky Henderson sends one of his big guns to Cheltenham, something he’s been doing for 40-plus years, he and the racing world generally expects it to win, writes Tony Stafford. Racing expectations, though, are fickle; so, once one of those penalty kicks goes awry, often the reputation garnered through a steady pattern of achievement can be lost in a trice.

That was the case with Shishkin, until Saturday at Ascot anyway, when he restored his standing at a stroke. Going 2m5f for the first time under Rules – we forget he started as a winning Irish point-to-pointer, so we should hardly be shocked he stays – he demolished his rivals with a 16-length beating of Paul Nicholls’ front-running Pic D’Orhy.

The favourite and last year’s winner, Joseph O’Brien’s Fakir D’oudairies, was another seven lengths back in third after an uncharacteristically sluggish display.

In the manner of Sprinter Sacre and Altior, his Seven Barrows predecessors as champion two-mile chasers, Shishkin ran in the Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham, usually the place where Nicky as well as the general public finds out which of his theretofore hard to separate smart novices is the superior.

Even that yardstick is fallible. When Altior won the Supreme in 2016, stable-companion Buveur D’Air finished third, but Hendo insisted Altior went the chasing route and never again in a career of 18 more races, 15 wins, three second places, did he see a hurdle in public.

Fortunately for Henderson and new owner J P McManus, who bought him after the third at Cheltenham, Buveur D’Air didn’t impress in two runs over fences, and switched back to hurdles, winning the next two Champion Hurdles. At the time it left us speculating what had possessed Henderson to allow what was surely the best hurdler around to miss out on at least two Champion Hurdles.

He, though, and the owners of Altior and Buveur D’Air, were more than happy as his stable enjoyed the best of both worlds. Until injury and an unfortunate misstep intruded on Altior’s career, here was a two-mile chaser deserving of mention in the same breath as his illustrious predecessor, Sprinter Sacre.

He, too, had run in the Supreme, but in his case in 2011 he was only third and not even the best of the Seven Barrows horses, pipped for runner-up spot by Spirit Son in the Michael Buckley colours and, at 5/1 the preferred in the market with stable jockey Barry Geraghty aboard, following Paul Nicholls’ Al Ferof over the line.

Sprinter Sacre had led over the last hurdle but faded up the hill under Tony McCoy. He started 11/1 so the Henderson pair finished as the market, and presumably stable insiders, had predicted. Sprinter Sacre’s was an amazing career over fences, winning 14 of 18 starts even with a late-onset heart problem, from which the maestro and his staff nursed him back to win again at the highest level, making him one of the true legends of jump racing.

Michael Buckley, after a few quiet years, was involved in a much more recent Seven Barrows dual-pronged attack on the Supreme. Just 11 months ago, his Constitution Hill and J P McManus’ Jonbon were respectively 9/4 joint-favourite (with Willie Mullins’ Dysart Dynamo) and 5/1 third best, and filled the first two places.

There wasn’t a gap between them at the finish, though: it was more a gulf if that’s the correct terminology for 22 lengths. This time Nicky wasn’t messing around and Constitution Hill has been campaigned adroitly since, considering the problems caused to trainers in this most unpredictable of summer/autumn/winters.

He has been restricted to just two exhibitions, albeit Grade 1’s, where only Mullins at home in Ireland could have engineered a similar feat in his Cheltenham trials. Filling second place to Constitution Hill in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and the Christmas Hurdle (at 12 and then 17 lengths’ distance) was Epatante, Champion Hurdle winner in 2020 before placing in Honeysuckle’s subsequent two victories in the race.

As for Jonbon, he’s off to the Arkle, the switch to fences delayed for a Grade 1 novice win at Aintree in April after which he has stretched his career tally to eight wins from nine with only Constitution Hill ever besting him.

He has always been odds-on and progressively heavier in each of his three runs over fences. If the latest at Warwick was a bit of a damp squib when he made hard work of beating a single opponent, he is still the 13/8 joint-favourite to follow Sprinter Sacre, Altior and Shishkin (and four others) to win the race for Seven Barrows.

That brings us nicely back to Shishkin, who following his Arkle triumph initially went on his merry way last season, getting the better of Ireland’s star second-season chaser Energumene in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot with a strong late rally to deny the Mullins front-runner.

Then came the denouement at Cheltenham, Shishkin never going, as Energumene exacted devastating revenge in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Shishkin’s return in the Tingle Creek in December at Sandown was another backward step, as he finished a tired third to Alan King’s Edwardstone. That put him briefly into centre stage until he in turn tarnished his gloss with a sub-standard Queen Mother warm-up over course and distance late last month.

The knives were out anticipating another Shishkin backward step on Saturday but, over half a mile further than he’d previously tried under Rules, he clearly found the more leisurely pace to his liking and the same finishing burst that had been the key to all his wins was even exaggerated by the trip.

Since the Festival last year, the spotlight has been so firmly aimed at Constitution Hill that Henderson has been allowed to take his time; and taking his time always means not listening to advice from “helpful” media, who never tire of trying to get trainers to allow a horse to run when they know it is the wrong thing.

Henderson has always regretted that he succumbed to the journalists’ clamour for Altior to take on Cyrname in a three-horse race over 2m5f at Ascot a few years back. That decision cost the horse his unbeaten chase record. Project to last November and there was no way he was going to allow Constitution Hill to run at that same meeting when he found on arrival at the track that the ground was unsuitably fast.

He made the right decision there, and now Shishkin is back, too. While he does have the Queen Mother option – he’s 10/1 for that - the two-and-half-mile Ryanair looks tailor-made and he’s the 5/4 favourite to stave off the always formidable challenge from across the Irish Sea.

With Constitution Hill, Shishkin and Jonbon for starters, and whatever else Nicky drums up, for once the home team will be going to war thinking a few races at least can help prevent an Irish slaughter in the Grade 1’s. That said, the multiplicity of dangers from over there in the handicaps remains a massive worry for the home team.

One jockey who will not be riding at his local and favourite course is Tom Scudamore who, after an unseat on Thursday at Leicester from a David Pipe 11/8 favourite, promptly announced his retirement.

Tom had quite a few rides for Raymond Tooth when he had jumpers and I always found him a joy to talk to with his ready smile. The worst thing about his retirement was when it was revealed he is 40; I still think of him and trainer brother Michael as in their early 20’s!

One day in the paddock somewhere I told him his dad Peter had only ever had two rides in my colours each at (non-Festival) Cheltenham and both were winners. “I know”, he said, adding: “the picture of one of them was in Mum and Dad’s toilet when we were growing up!”

ITV didn’t take long to sort him out on their coverage at the weekend and hopefully he’ll be in the team at next month’s Festival. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two brown envelopes come his way over the four days either!