Nicky Henderson has revealed that Shishkin has been suffering from a sore splint following his heart-breaking unseat in the King George VI Chase.
The mercurial nine-year-old appeared to be going strongly at the head of affairs before losing his footing a stride after the penultimate fence and unshipping jockey Nico de Boinville from the saddle, leaving the Kempton Grade 1 there for the taking as Hewick swooped to snatch what looked an unlikely victory.
Speaking on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast, the Seven Barrows trainer suggested he may have found a possible reason for the unfortunate incident.
He said: "We're still divulging the facts and the figures but it is interesting as he's got one very sore splint on the inside of his off-fore. And that has almost certainly taken a blow.
"He was definitely doing something funky with his legs in the air or on landing at the second-last, and I suspect one foot has hit the inside of that off-fore. He was very, very sore and I think that's taken a nasty clonk.
"He was possibly lame for one stride on landing.
"It's settling down now after a few days and he was sound on it the next day but if you press him on it he'll tell you to stop doing it."
Shishkin is a general 12/1 chance for the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March and Henderson is still pondering whether or not he'll have another outing before the Festival highlight.
He said: "I really don't know, there's a big question as to whether to run again (before the Gold Cup). You've got the Cotswold (Cheltenham) and you've got the Denman (Newbury) and they are the two options really, but do we need to?
"You can pretty much say we did manage to get him fit for the King George without a run. Okay, he didn't prove it over the last fence that he was fit but he galloped and didn't look like stopping.
"So we've got him fit without a run for the King George so I don't see getting ready for the Gold Cup without a run would be a big problem. It just depends how long this splint takes to settle down."
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