Energumene eased to victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase on day two at the Cheltenham Festival.
The Willie Mullins-trained two-miler relished the soft ground, unlike the favourite Shishkin, who was pulled up. Always going well for Paul Townend, the 5-2 winner was driven out to the line to defeat outsider Funambule Sivola by eight-and-a-half lengths, with Envoi Allen back in third.
Townend told ITV Racing: “I was on a very good horse and you can make it look easy then. He’d won on very heavy ground in Ireland so that wasn’t going to worry us. It didn’t work in Ascot and the tactics kind of went out the window early on as well, he was enjoying himself. I let him jump up there and just kept holding on to him.”
In soggy conditions, which turned the ground heavy a short while after the runners had returned to be unsaddled, the big race favourite Shishkin flopped.
Jockey Nico de Boinville called it a day on the 5-6 shot heading to the ninth fence, where Chacun Pour Soi unseated Patrick Mullins. From the moment the tapes Shishkin never travelled with fluency.
Henderson told ITV Racing he knew the race wasn't going to plan very early on. "He couldn't get out of the ground going to the first fence," the trainer said. "Nico was dead right. There was no point subjecting him to any more of that.
"You either do or you don't (go on the ground), it's as simple as that. When it's like this you are into the real extremes. You never know until you run them in that what they can cope with."
The Seven Barrows handler added that he understood why the clerk of the course watered the course yesterday. Relentless rain throughout Wednesday turned the ground soft before the first race – and trainer Paul Nicholls was unhappy with conditions before pulling out Bravemangame.
"I'm not blaming them, it was going to be soft anyway," Henderson added. "This rain would have made it soft with or without watering."
