It happens all the time. If it hasn't got soft in the going everyone gets frightened. So they water to make sure and that's artificial so when it rains it really gets mucky.
Don't great horses go on anything ? Hopefully he will be back and that Ascot win didn't break his desire to run and leap fences.
I find it an odd one, to me he looked beaten on landing at the first and going up the hill for the first time. I don’t know if you can put that much of an issue down to the ground. I wondered if Nico had heard him choke or something but that didn’t seem to happen. A peculiar effort.
From Irisracing: Of Shiskin’s run, Henderson said: “He wasn’t where he wanted to be and I knew why, he just couldn’t get out of it (the ground). “We’re in very extreme ground, yes he’s won on soft ground but you’re going round in heavy ground. “That is not his scene, obviously.”