Chester Vase the highlight today

the Chester May Meeting continues with the Chester Vase over 1 1/2 miles at 16.10 CET the main feature. This is a significant Derby trial, especially as it is run over the full Derby distance. Aidan O´Brien has won it 5 times in the last 8 years, including with subsequent Epsom scorer Ruler of the World, and has good chances again with Hans Holbein (Ryan Moore), moving up sharply in grade after easily winning a Leopardstown maiden. He is however quoted at 50-1 for the Derby, so is apparently not one of the stable´s main hopes, while a similar type Sir Isaac Newton flopped here yesterday, so we would not go steaming in here. We still expect him to win as he appears to have considerable scope for improvement, while his main rivals on form, Future Empire (Saeed bin Suroor/ James Doyle) and Medrano (David Brown/ Graham Lee) look fairly exposed.

The other group race here is the Huxley Stakes for older horses over 10 furlongs at 15.40. This is as tight as any handicap, with only one pound separating 5 of the 6 runners. Windhoek (Bin Suroor/ Doyle), as a Group Two winner in Turkey last year, has to concede 5 lbs to his rivals, which makes things difficult, and Godolphin´s first string Maverick Wave (John Gosden/ William Buick) looks the main danger to the likely favourite Cannock Chase (Sir Michael Stoiute/ Ryan Moore). Air Pilot (Ralph Beckett/ Richard Kingscote) won a listed race at Newmarket last time and is another possible.

A couple of German-breds of interest here are the mare Tahira (John Quinn/ Philipp Makin) in the opening 10 furlongs handicap and Kyrenia´s Castle (David and Adrian Nicholls) in the 6 furlongs handicap at 17.55. We are not convinced by the latter, who seems best on the all-weather, but Tahira, trained by Uwe Stech to win two valuable sales races in 2013, is interesting, as she has been dropped in the weights after a fruitless 2014 campaign and now looks well handicapped, although this is a very tricky race.

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Collaboration - Gabrial`s Kaka - Tres Coronas
2. Race: Cannock Chase - Air Pilot - Maverick Wave
3. Race: Future Empire - Hans Holbein - Tannaaf
4. Race: Geordie George - Pleiades - Billy Slater
5. Race: Raj To Riches - Young John - High Speed
6. Race: Northgate Lad - Cartmell Cleave - Johnny B Goode
7. Race: Modernism - Empress Ali - Ardmay