Ascot Chase live on Sky Sports: Full runner guide and expert verdict to Saturday's Grade One clash
Defending champion Fakir d'Oudairies faces five rivals, including four-time Grade One winner Shishkin, in Saturday's Ascot Chase, live on Sky Sports Racing; Paul Nicholls steps Pic D'Orhy up to top level after Silviniaco Conti victory last time
Friday 17 February 2023 13:27, UK
Sky Sports Racing's senior form analyst Jamie Lynch gives his verdict on every runner going for Grade One glory at Ascot on Saturday, live on Sky Sports Racing.
We've had almost three decades of the Betfair Ascot Chase, a Grade One propped up by the illustrious past winners such as One Man, Kauto Star and Cue Card.
The contest often features a good one, and sometimes two, but rarely if ever has the Ascot Chase had a cast and a script quite so compelling as Saturday's renewal, live on Sky Sports Racing, including as it does the defending champion, a fallen star and a chaser on the crest of a momentum wave.
- Fakir d'Oudairies, Shishkin spearhead super six for Ascot Chase
- 'Shishkin has it all to prove' - key quotes ahead of Ascot Chase
Let's spin through the runners…
Aye Right
Jockey: Ryan Mania; Trainer: Harriet Graham & Gary Rutherford
One of the most likeable handicappers around, but therein lies the crux of the matter: he's a top-end handicapper and no more than that, aged 10.
His reappearance when second at Kelso to Sounds Russian (mission impossible trying to give him 6lb as it turned out) showed that he's still got all his ability and appetite, but his standards have slipped in two starts since.
It's hard to see him playing a part in the finish, but he may play a big part in shaping the race, a front-runner nowadays and therefore on a collision course with Pic D'Orhy from an early stage, which would impact on all runners in various ways.
Fakir d'Oudairies
J J Slevin; Joseph O'Brien
A horse who's the epitome of the phrase 'greater than the sum of its parts.' There's no one skill or strength you can point to with Fakir d'Oudairies and say that's the reason he's compiled the CV he has, more that he's super-efficient and proficient, with an attitude that augments his ability. In short, he's the ultimate professional.
To highlight the feeling that he's something of an overachiever in a world full of underachievers, there aren't many chasers - past or present - rated in the low 160s who've managed to win four Grade Ones, including this race last year, albeit a thinner field than he faces this time.
He's also finished second a further seven times in Grade One company, bowing only to Mullins's monsters like Allaho, Chacun Pour Soi and Galopin Des Champs along the way, though it does emphasise that he's vulnerable to top-tier chasers, as Shishkin has been and Pic D'Orhy may yet become.
However, Fakir d'Oudairies is a nightmare to a pair like that with points to prove, all because he's so straightforward and such a streetfighter.
He arrives fairly fresh following a two-race campaign in which he's shown all of his powers are intact, even if he was handed the Kinloch Brae by the final-fence departure of Haut En Couleurs. Time will likely to show it was quite the task trying to concede 9 lb to that one.
The greatest ability is dependability, they say, which extols the virtue and value of Fakir d'Oudairies.
First Flow
David Bass; Kim Bailey
To some extent, Father Time has caught up with Mother Nature ever since his defining season of 2020/21.
Restricted to just three races since, his reappearance this term in the Peterborough Chase was a snapshot of his predicament in that the younger, more progressive pair of Pic D'Orhy and Millers Bank did for him.
Even if, from out of the blue, First Flow suddenly recaptured his peak form, that may get him only fourth in a renewal as hot as this one.
Millers Bank
Jonathan Burke; Alex Hales
Won a substandard Grade One (Manifesto) at Aintree last year, when Pic D'Orhy failed to fire, but gave the fully-powered version of Pic D'Orhy a race in their third meeting in the Peterborough Chase in December, beaten two lengths in an unfair fight against the dictating winner, with First Flow back in third.
He was out of his pay grade in the King George last time, and it may be the same again here, in another up-to-scratch Grade One.
But, there is a scenario where he outruns his odds, if a strong gallop puts the emphasis on stamina, which is certainly possible given the make and shape of the field.
Pic D'Orhy
Harry Cobden; Paul Nicholls
Kauto Star and Denman are giants of the sport and the long-lasting legacy of their trainer, but in reality, it's horses like Pic D'Orhy who really reflect the genius of Paul Nicholls.
He's the type who, when no sooner looking set and stuck in their ways, metamorphasise into something altogether different and altogether better, unforeseeable and almost unbelievable.
Take Pic D'Orhy, who stuttered through last year and got stage fright in the biggest arenas, yet this campaign - after a wind op - has turned into a Cyrname tribute act, a fiery front-runner who has been unstoppable so far this season, winning Grade Two prizes in style the last twice.
That said, the best rivals he's despatched in the process are Millers Bank and First Flow, who aren't in the same league as Fakir d'Oudairies never mind a peak Shishkin.
Cyrname brought an official rating of 165 with him when he won the 2019 Ascot Chase, and Pic D'Orhy's is now 162, so the similarities have some substance beyond the style, and he's the one in this field with all the momentum.
But, Cyrname was the exception more than the rule for horses expressing themselves in the same way however high they climb, and all of his fine work this term doesn't fully eclipse the memory of Pic D'Orhy falling apart the times he's been in Grade One company previously in Britain.
Shishkin
Nico de Boinville; Nicky Henderson
Renaissance is the green end of the hardest winter. It has been a hard winter for Shishkin, subdued the one and only time we saw him in the Tingle Creek, seemingly still suffering a hangover from a lifeless display in last year's Champion Chase. That's why the Ascot Chase is D-Day for Shishkin.
For two years he was unbeaten and unbeatable, picking up the baton of brilliance passed on by Sprinter Sacre then Altior, one an inspiration and the other a cautionary tale, as Sprinter Sacre regenerated spectacularly after his rut, but Altior was never the same after his most demanding of duels against Cyrname at Ascot.
We know which direction he's going - up in distance, a reaction to the disappointments rather than a reason for a revival.
If he is refreshed and reinvigorated - and the tongue tie helps - then he'll embarrass this lot, and the trip will only allow Shishkin to show it more. The stakes couldn't be higher.
JAMIE LYNCH'S VERDICT
Any and every bet involves calculating probabilities, in the context of odds, and Fakir D'Oudairies is a champion of probability, because of his predictability and practicality.
However, this race is about more than that, due to the spectre of SHISHKIN, who once stood head and shoulders above all of his Ascot rivals, and introduces the incalculable question of whether he's still got it or not, itself a matter of estimation and therefore percentages.
There's enough juice in his price to keep the faith.
