Shishkin has quality and character - but the doubters will get their voices back in time for Cheltenham

Betfair Hurdle day at Newbury is one of those fixtures where things can go badly wrong for punters and some of us can still remember the time when Behrajan, Flagship Uberalles and First Gold were all turned over at odds-on in the first three races in 2001. But there were few surprises on Saturday's card as the big-name pair, Shishkin and Edwardstone, enjoyed comfortable successes on the way to much harder tests at Cheltenham.

Sunday's front page went so far as to claim that Shishkin had silenced the doubters. I mean, let's not ask for the moon. In racing, doubters are omnipresent and thank God, or we'd have trouble getting a bet on. Plus there are a couple of caveats to be noted in relation to his Denman Chase victory. Most notably, his main rival did himself in.

Protektorat was the only other horse in the field for whom a serious form case could be made and he had a fun time with an uncontested lead for much of the way. But he completely failed to settle and there was always going to be a reckoning for that, even if the ground was not actually as bad as suggested by an official description of heavy.