Will Monmiral go chasing in 2021/22?

The short answer is probably not. Previewing the 2021/22 season his Betfair column in early October, 2021, trainer Paul Nicholls wrote that Monmiral ‘will probably stay hurdling this year’, but added that ‘nothing is set in stone’. However, Nicholls and the owners of Monmiral, who include Sir Alex Ferguson and John Hales, have made no secret of the fact that they consider the Saint Des Saints gelding a steeplechaser in the making. Interviewed in January, 2021, by which time Monmiral was 2-2 for his new yard, following his transfer from French trainer Francois Nicolle the previous November, Nicholls said, ‘He won’t even have an entry in the Triumph Hurdle.’

His decision was vindicated when Monmiral won the Victor Ludorum Juvenile Hurdle at Haydock and the Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle at Aintree on his next two starts to maintain his unbeaten record. Indeed, on the latter occasion, he beat the Triumph Hurdle runner-up, Adagio, by 7½ lengths at level weights and, in so doing, earned the highest Timeform rating, 151p, of any juvenile hurdler in 2020/21. Of course, Adagio has since finished a close second, under 11st 12lb, in the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham on his return to action following wind surgery, so the Aintree form could yet prove even better than it did at the time.

As far as 2021/22 is concerned, Nicholls has said that Monmiral will reappear in the first Grade 1 hurdle race of the season, the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, at Newcastle in late November. He has, so far, declined to commit to future targets, but does seem keem on the idea of running Monmiral in the Aintree Hurdle, over two-and-a-half miles, at the Grand National Festival in April; Nicholls last won that race with Zarkandar in 2013.

 

Which horse was Richard Johnson’s first Cheltenham Festival winner?

At the time of his shock retirement, on April 3, 2021, Richard Johnson had ridden 3,819 winners, making him the second most prolific National Hunt jockey in history, behind only his old friend and rival, Tony McCoy. Johnson won the Jump Jockeys’ Championship four years running between 2016 and 2019, but not until McCoy – who was perennial Champion Jockey for the preceding two decades – retired at the end of the 2014/15 season.

Johnson rode his first winner of any description, Rusty Bridge, trained by his mother Susan, in the Next Generation Hunters’ Chase at Hereford on April 30, 1994, as a 16-year-old amateur. At the insistence of his mentor, the late David Nicholson, who was, at the time, based at Jackdaws Castle, Gloucestershire, he retained his amateur status until the following November, when he turned professional.

Johnson was Champion Conditional Jockey in 1995/1996 but, as far as the Cheltenham Festival is concerned, did not ride his first winner until 1999. Fittingly, that winner was Anzum, saddled by Nicholson, in his final season as a trainer, in the Stayers’ Hurdle on March 18, 1999. Johnson had ridden the same horse into second place in the same race two years earlier.

Johnson would go on to ride 22 Cheltenham Festival winners in total, including Looks Like Trouble and Native River in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2000 and 2018, respectively. At the time of his retirement, Johnson expressed his gratitude to Nicholson, saying, ‘Without ‘The Duke’ [Nicholson] and [his wife] Dinah Nicholson and their remarkable staff, I’d never have got that first leg up.’

Was Richard Fahey once a jockey?

Nowadays, Richard Fahey is a highly successful trainer based at Musley Bank, near Malton, North Yorkshire. Fahey turned his hand to training, at nearby Butterworth, in 1993, but in his earlier years enjoyed a moderately successful career as conditional jockey to the late Jimmy Fitzgerald at Norton Grange Stables, also in Malton. Indeed, on June 3, 1989, he rode Wisconsin, trained by Michael Chapman, to victory in the final race of the 1988/1989 season, the Dove House Hospice Mares Only Novices’ Hurdle at Market Rasen, to secure a share of the conditional jockeys’ title with Derek Byrne and Stuart Turner.

Fahey continued to ride winners after losing his claim, but the last of them was Gymcrak Gamble, trained by Peter Easterby – whose daughter, Leila, he had married three years earlier – on May 20, 1992. Reflecting on his riding career, Fahey said, ‘I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t enjoying it and couldn’t see a future in it, so I gave it up before it gave me up.’

Fahey began his training career modestly enough, saddling just ten winners in his first three seasons and not breaking into double figures for a season until 1996. Thereafter, his record was one of steady improvement, season-by-season. He saddled 50 winners in a season for the first time in 2003 and 100 winners in a season for the first time in 2008. He enjoyed his most successful season ever, numerically and financially, in 2017, with 235 winners and £3.85 million in total prize money.

 

Does Shishkin have wind problems?

At the end of the 2020/21 National Hunt season, Shishkin was the highest-rated novice chaser in the country, according to Timeform. Owned by Joe and Marie Donnelly and trained by Nicky Henderson, the seven-year-old won all five starts over fences in 2020/21, including the Arkle Challenge Trophy at the Cheltenham Festival, and is currently favourite for the 2022 Queen Mother Champion Chase.

In September, 2021, shortly after announcing the retirement of his former stable star, Altior, Henderson was keen to make it known that Shishkin had undergone a minor wind operation. A routine examination of his upper respiratory tract – performed with a device called an endoscope and therefore known, colloquially, as ‘scoping’ – revealed that Shishkin might need a wind operation at some point. So, rather than interrupt his training programme once the season was underway, connections chose to schedule surgery sooner rather than later.

Explaining the rationale behind the ‘safety first’ approach, Henderson said, ‘You don’t want to run in the Tingle Creek [his intended target for Shishkin’s seasonal reappearance, at Sandown in December] and find that there was a problem and stop and start again.’ Nevertheless, he played down the procedure, describing it as ‘nothing out of the ordinary’ and added that Shiskin had done ‘phenomenally well’, physically, over the summer.

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