Cheltenham Festival: Nicky Henderson looks ahead to Sporting Life Arkle with Shishkin

The champion trainer feels last year's Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle winner Shishkin has all the right attributes required to provide him with a seventh Arkle success at next month's Cheltenham Festival, but admits the emergence of Energumene as his main danger is tinged with irony.

Now trained by Willie Mullins in Ireland, Energumene - who like Shishkin is also three from three over fences since tackling the larger obstacles this season - won a British point-to-point at Larkhill in his youth when in the care of Sophie Lacey, before which Henderson recalls him having a schooling session under Shishkin's jockey Nico de Boinville in Lambourn.

Henderson explains: "Tom Lacey had him (Energumene) as a point-to-pointer and he actually came and schooled here before he ran in his point.

"He really should live here shouldn't he?!

"Nico schooled him and forgot to tell me it was brilliant! I didn't actually see it. But Tom often brought horses down here to work before they ran and somehow Nico got to school Energumene without me knowing and it was too late, the next I knew he'd run, been bought and transferred across the water.

"I watched the whole of the Dublin Racing Festival and it was scary. In Energumene we've now obviously got a serious competitor."

As for the horse for which he remains responsible, Henderson has been impressed with what Shishkin has achieved in his novice chase campaign so far and still feels he was value for a touch more than the bare margin of success over Abacadabras in the 2020 Festival curtain-raiser.

He said: "Shishkin's Supreme last year was a mighty performance because it was another horse of Joe Donnelly's (Asterion Forlonge) who came across and literally took him over into the car park.

"I thought that had to be the end of that and he and Nico did incredibly well to get themselves back into the race and right into the thick of it going to the last, then they had that terrific battle up the run-in. But he was game to come back from where he'd been as it was an odd route.

"You touch wood from now on and it's a case of getting them all there. Three weeks ago he was odds-on and it was going to be a boring race of the Festival, now there's three or four top-class horses coming into the fight it out and it's a long way from a shoo-in. It's going to be one of the best clashes of the week I think.

"Shishkin is a good-looking horse, he's got a lovely character as he's very straightforward and professional. Shishkin is just a sensible person.

"Altior won a Supreme and Sprinter Sacre was third in the Supreme, so hopefully he's in that mould."

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More from Nicky Henderson...

Henderson on the Sporting Life Arkle Challenge Trophy:

"It is a special race, it's the route to the Champion Chase for the youngsters and it's a very exciting race. All those two-milers are good to watch and the emphasis has to be on jumping.

"It's always really one of the most exciting races of the meeting."

Henderson on Sprinter Sacre:

"I think at that period of his career, his Arkle and then his first Champion Chase, he was unbeatable. His jumping was deadly and he was awesome in those days."

Henderson on Altior:

"I think we knew it was going to take something unique to beat him. We've always said we'd settle for one (Cheltenham winner) but with Sprinter and Altior you knew you'd be very disappointed if those didn't go right."

Henderson on Remittance Man:

"He was a dreadful box-walker. He barely needed a trainer as he was going round and round all night. He lived with a sheep and Alan 'Lamb' was the famous one. We used to just swap the sheep every year for the next season but we brought one back for a bit when Remittance Man took an instant dislike to it.

"We thought this isn't going to work so we went back and asked for last year's sheep. We got a horse and took it up to the 400 sheep and 399 went one way and the one came to see the horse, so we knew it was the right one."