Someone threw the wrong winner’s blanket over Constitution Hill after he extended his record to seven from seven here on Thursday – something will have gone awry if he ever wins a handicap chase – but that was the only blip in another flawless afternoon’s work for Nicky Henderson’s unbeaten hurdler as he won the Aintree Hurdle.
Whether he will attempt to translate his brilliance to steeplechasing next season remains to be seen. Over hurdles, though, there is little left for Constitution Hill to achieve. This first start at two-and-a-half miles proved to be every bit as processional as his six at the minimum trip.
One bookie reported laying a £280,000 bet at 1-10 on Constitution Hill and the backer’s money would have been little safer in the bank. Nico de Boinville made all the running and though the three-length winning margin over Sharjah was the smallest of Constitution Hill’s career it could have been much wider had the rider let out an inch of rein.
“That couldn’t have been more straightforward,” Henderson said. “Two-and-a-half miles out there on your own, your mind could wander, but he’s just had a doddle around and was in second gear the whole way.
“I’m sure he’d get three miles, but there’ll be no decisions made today about next year. I’m not saying we won’t school him over a fence, but we’re not leaning any way.
“As long as he keeps doing it like that, we’ve got a long summer to look back on it and enjoy it and talk about what will happen next.
“There’s only so many races he can run in next year. Fighting Fifth, Christmas Hurdle, I do think the International [Hurdle] will come into it on Trials day [in January] and then Champion Hurdle and come here. Some might say that’s boring, but we won’t find it boring. All options are still open and we won’t make a decision until the autumn, I’d have thought.”
Henderson has experienced enough of the ups and downs of jumping over his 45 years with a licence to be wary of looking too far into the future, but he can rarely have had so much cause to wish the summer away as he does currently, with Constitution Hill’s win following a return to form by his best chaser, Shishkin.
Shishkin came up just short behind Envoi Allen in the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham last month, but his first race beyond three miles in the Aintree Bowl saw him produce a strong staying performance that brings the next season’s King George VI Chase at Kempton and even the Gold Cup at Cheltenham into sharper focus.
“The obvious thing is the King George and we take it from there,” Henderson said. “Whether we go to the Betfair [Chase at Haydock in November] then the King George, I don’t know.
“He was very sore after Cheltenham. You have to assume he might have been sore going into it, but it is hard to tell. The only moment he was going at Cheltenham was the run-in.
“He used to be very straightforward, but like everybody he gets a bit creakier maybe and you have to treat him like that. You have to say well done to the team as they have helped us turn him around.”
Ahoy Senor, a faller in the Gold Cup last time, was a brave runner-up as Shishkin found a second wind to run him down a few strides from the line, while A Plus Tard, the 2022 Gold Cup winner, was third. “He didn’t finish out the race as well as we’d have liked,” said Henry de Bromhead, A Plus Tard’s trainer. “But we are definitely heading back in the right direction.”
Shishkin was cut from 8-1 to 4-1 for the King George by Betfair and from 25-1 to 12-1 to win next year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Earlier on the card, Zenta scraped home in the juvenile hurdle to land some hefty bets at 5-4, while Banbridge, a fresh horse after skirting around the Cheltenham Festival, got Joseph O’Brien’s meeting off to the ideal start in the Manifesto Novice Chase.
