NATIONAL Hunt action has become a bit thin on the rain-soaked and/or frozen ground of late, but any week in which Shishkin turns up and does his impression of Pegasus cannot be described as boring.

This time, it was Doncaster and the Grade 2 Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Lightning Novices’ Chase, in which Shishkin had just three rivals, one of whom departed at halfway.

Eldorado Allen is a proven smart performer, a winner at this level in November, but Shishkin beat him by eight and a half lengths, and last-time handicap winner Est Illic ended up about a furlong behind by the time Shishkin crossed the line.

More to the point, especially where this column is concerned, Shishkin appeared to run fast, very fast, as compared to the other two chases on the card, both at longer distances.

The ground had appeared to be tending towards heavy when Ibleo ran 4m 14.3s the day before, but Shishkin’s time for the exact same distance 24 hours later was only 4m 01.6s and more like what you might expect of “good to soft”.

Conditions speeded up in between, but surely not enough to explain all of that difference.

In every timing respect, including in terms of by-furlong and by-obstacle sectionals, Shishkin impressed.

However, we have a pretty good idea of what the runner-up is capable of, and that is a figure of around 149, which makes Shishkin 162 on this occasion, compared to his stellar 169 effort at Kempton over Christmas, when he ran much faster overall and late on than both Nube Negra and Altior.

Arkle Chase

That seems plausible, given that Shishkin was very far from all out. His Kempton success would win him an Arkle Chase much more often than not, but Doncaster was probably a few lengths behind it.

There should be no doubt that he is very good indeed in novice chasing terms, for he has done it against the clock twice now, and that is the kind of evidence that cannot be faked.