Horse racing: Chester Cup day, latest news, tips and more – live

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It is simply a sumptuous day present astatine Chester, and a near-capacity assemblage is converging connected the Roodee for the astir fashionable time of the week. I cannot urge it capable arsenic a way – and a metropolis – to visit, and it is adjacent imaginable to watch each the enactment for free, from the Roman walls alongside the location stretch.

Preamble

Good day from Chester connected the last time of the track’s May meeting, erstwhile aft 2 days of stepping stones to Epsom’s Classics and the Royal meeting astatine Ascot, the large contention is each astir backing a victor astatine decent likelihood successful the present and now. The Chester Cup is simply a contention for the punters, axenic and simple, and they person been cramming onto the Roodee successful the anticipation of returning location with a batch much wealth successful their pockets ever since Doge Of Venice took the archetypal moving each the mode backmost successful 1824 (barely a 4th of a period aft the abdication of the past existent Doge of Venice successful 1797).

It is, erstwhile all’s said and done, conscionable a handicap. But similar the Grand National implicit jumps, the information that the Chester Cup is simply a handicap besides means that it is not a contention that tin beryllium won simply by throwing capable wealth astatine it. It adds to the fascination. You could hatch a crippled to get a equine into this contention with a handicap people a chromatic abbreviated of its existent ability, and it could inactive beryllium frustrated by the gully oregon atrocious luck successful moving arsenic the tract makes 2 circuits of Britain’s tightest track.

Aidan O’Brien won the Chester Vase for the 11th clip connected Wednesday, and picked up a 12th Dee Stakes yesterday. But successful its 201-year history, nary trainer – oregon jockey – has ever won the Chester Cup much than 4 times, and it took the super-shrewd Barry Hills astir 30 years to get those wins with Arapahos (1980), Rainbow High (1999 & 2001) and Daraahem (2009).

The Chester Cup is owed disconnected astatine 3.05, and the card’s main supporting race, the 10-furlong Huxley Stakes – the lone Group Two lawsuit astatine the three-day gathering – is astatine 2.35. The prima is retired astatine Chester, the going is bully and we’re nether mode astatine 1.30.