May 2021

Good morning all,

Chester’s May Festival is back after a year off due to lockdown. It’s the start of a busy week of Derby & Oaks Trials starting at Chester today. Moving to Lingfield on Saturday and York’s Dante Meeting next week.

The feature races are the Group 3 Chester Vase (3:15). It’s an Epsom Derby Trial which was won in 2013 by Ruler Of The World before he went onto victory in that year’s Derby. In 2017 Wings Of Eagles finished runner-up in the race before going onto success at Epsom. Both horses were trained by Aidan O’Brien who has farmed the race in recent seasons winning seven of the last nine renewals.

The other classic trial is the Cheshire Oaks (2:15).  The race was won in 2017 by Enable before her win in the Epsom Oaks. John Gosden or Aidan O’Brien have saddled the last five winners of the race.

Inside today’s main piece, I’m concentrating on this afternoon’s racing from Chester. If you’re lucky enough to be off today or working from home you can watch the best of the Chester action on ITV Racing.

Good morning all,

It was raining steadily in my part of Yorkshire yesterday. Not great for outside drinking & eating or a day at the seaside. However, we haven’t had any rain here for over seven weeks and the racecourses will have really welcomed every millimetre of the wet stuff that fell.

The field sizes at Newmarket’s Guineas Festival the two Classics apart were dreadful. The 3-year-old handicaps were poor for a prestigious meeting like the Guineas Festival. Granted the good to firm ground at Newmarket didn’t help and the prize money isn’t anywhere near back to pre-Covid levels. Still, it was a worrying sign and it’s not been confined to Newmarket some other tracks have suffered from poor field sizes for Class 3 handicaps.

Maybe the lack of racecourse hospitality is putting off some owners from running their horses. You also have the problem that some courses are still unable to accommodate overnight stays. I know that’s been an issue at the likes of Ripon.  Hopefully it’s simply those two reasons which are causing the lack of runners rather than something more worrying like a reduced number of horses in training due to the pandemic.

Inside today’s main piece I have several horses that caught my eye last week. Plus, I have an ante post tip for Royal Ascot and a selection from Wolverhampton’s evening fixture.

Good morning all,

There are plenty of punters who hold the view that Guineas Weekend is the start of the flat season.  Well, the first two English Classics are now out of the way for another year.

What did we learn?

You can read my thoughts on both races inside the main piece. Plus, I have had a look at handful of races on a busy Bank Holiday.