08-05-2025
Horse racing: Chester's May meeting day two, latest news and more
Good afternoon from the Roodee in Chester – and welcome back to anyone who was following the action yesterday – on day two of Chester's May festival, ahead of the Dee Stakes, the meeting's second Derby trial, and the Group Three Ormonde Stakes for stayers.
The Dee has blown occasionally hot but generally cold as a pointer towards the Derby over the course of its 212-year history (though it may well be the only recognised Derby trial that has been won by a future Grand National winner, as Voluptuary, the Dee winner in 1881, ran unplaced at Epsom a few weeks later and landed the Aintree spectacular three years after that).
But today's renewal looks stronger than several recent renewals, not least as the recent Wood Ditton Stakes winner, High Stock, is among the runners. The Wood Ditton, over a mile at Newmarket's Craven meeting in mid-April, is restricted to unraced three-year-olds and frequently includes a future top-notcher that, for whatever reason, simply couldn't get to a track as a juvenile. High Stock is bred to get at least a mile-and-a-quarter and today's race is the perfect way to find out if it might be worth supplementing him for the Derby.
The Ormonde, meanwhile, is also a fascinating contest which pits Illinois, the runner-up in last year's St Leger, against the impressively versatile Absurde, a former winner of the County Handicap Hurdle at the Cheltenham festival who has performed with credit in the last two runnings of the Melbourne Cup.
The Dee is due off at 2.35 while the Ormonde is at 3.05, and the card opens at 1.30 with a five-furlong handicap in which, unusually for a track where the draw is all-important in sprints, has a field of a dozen runners with no withdrawals from the higher-numbered stalls. Share
