Classic clues at Chester May Festival including in the Chester Vase and the Dee Stakes
By Matt Brocklebank
15:22 · MON May 06, 2024
Matt Brocklebank highlights three key races at Chester's Boodles May Festival that could see horses enhance their Classic credentials this week.
Dame to come of age and spark Oaks dreams?
Enable famously did the Cheshire Oaks/Epsom double in 2017, while the following season Forever Together, runner-up here at Chester, went one better in the Oaks itself. The latter’s trainer Aidan O’Brien has declared two this time around, Port Fairy and Rubies Are Red.
However, it is the Ballydoyle man's son, Joseph O’Brien, who looks to have the outstanding Cheshire Oaks candidate as Galileo Dame – a daughter of 2000 Guineas winner Galileo Gold – looks to confirm the big impression she made when winning a 10-furlong maiden at Leopardstown last month [replay below].
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She had shaped with considerable promise when second over a mile at Gowran on her sole start at two and has evidently blossomed through the winter. She also benefited from the step up in distance, readily accounting for Rubies Are Red, and it’s well worth noting that her dam Two For Tea is from the same family as Oaks winner Light Shift.
Galileo Dame doesn’t have an Epsom entry yet but she's in the Ribblesdale and the Pretty Polly at the Curragh so big things are expected and if all goes smoothly this week then no doubt there will be a conversation to be had over whether or not to supplement for the final Friday in May.
Square could go round Chester with panache
With all due respect to all-weather winners Cadogan Place (Andrew Balding) and Pappano (John & Thady Gosden), it doesn’t look the strongest edition of the Boodles Chester Vase, a race won 10 times in the past by Aidan O’Brien. Those winners include the subsequent Derby scorer Ruler Of The World, while the same stable's 2017 Epsom hero Wings Of Eagles had been runner-up in the Vase en route.
There are two from Ballydoyle engaged this year, namely Agenda and Grosvenor Square, with the latter looking the ace in the pack.
Grosvenor Square won two of his three starts as a juvenile, the one defeat coming when a staying-on third behind Deepone in the Group 2 Beresford Stakes at the Curragh in September. He signed off with a comfortable four and a quarter-length defeat of stablemate Cambridge in a Group 3 at Leopardstown and, as a son of Galileo and half-brother to Irish Derby winner Santiago, he’s made for middle-distances on better ground this year.
He is generally 12/1 for the Betfred Derby, the shortest of the O’Brien colts behind Henry Longfellow and Saturday's Guineas flop City Of Troy.
Window to emerge into Classic view
Thursday's Boodles Raindance Dee Stakes has the makings of a cracking edition of the race, featuring Feilden winner Jayarebe and Richard Hughes’ impressive Chelmsford scorer Bracken’s Laugh, as well as Epsom Blue Riband Trial runner-up Defiance and a couple for Aidan O’Brien in Capulet and London City.
Ed Walker’s Harper’s Ferry looks another fascinating runner too given he could have gone into a handicap with a relatively low mark of 88, but God’s Window may be the one on trial for the Derby.
He barely made a ripple on the Epsom market with a long odds-on victory in a soft-ground Nottingham novice last month but he’d ended last year with a promising third to Ancient Wisdom in the Group 1 Futurity Trophy at Doncaster and he’s bred to improve as he goes up in trip at three.
God’s Window is 33/1 across the board for the Derby and could be one to take a chance on prior to the big races in the pressure-cooker atmosphere at Chester this week.
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