RACING/CHESTER REPORT:BARRY HILLS was denied a fifth Chester Cup with Tastahil as dual-purpose performer Mamlook swooped for glory on the Roodee at Chester yesterday.
Jockey Richard Hughes had recommended the race to trainer David Pipe after the pair finished strongly for second in the Cesarewitch last year. And his placing proved spot on as Mamlook broke well and picked off top weight Tastahil in the dying strides to win the marathon contest by a head.
Halla San finished third for the second successive year and Irish raider Majestic Concorde completed the placings in fourth.
The 17 runners crawled for most of the two-mile-two-furlong trip and those who sat handy throughout dominated the finish.
Mamlook had plenty of form in the book which allowed him to start the 7 to 1 market leader, including his Cesarewitch placing and a close second in the 2008 Ascot Stakes at the Royal meeting.
Winning owner Peter Deal is best known for his association with 1997 Champion Hurdle winner Make A Stand.
Hughes said: “It was lucky I went to Aintree as I bumped into David and told him to make sure he put this horse in the Chester Cup! I’ve been watching him running over jumps and I’ve kept tipping him to everyone, but the ground kept going too soft for him and he’s a right horse on his day.
“He’s so long and big he normally doesn’t jump that well from the stalls, but luckily he did today and hacked around, so it was ideal.”
Hughes landed the Chester Cup aboard Hills’ Rainbow High in 2001, with the dual winner of the race also scoring in 1999. Arapahos and Daraahem 12 months ago have also done the business for Hills and Tastahil defied his outside draw to be beaten a head.
John Gosden ensured domestic harmony as he sent out Gertrude Bell, who is owned by his wife Rachel Hood, to lay down an Epsom marker in the Weatherbys Bank Cheshire Oaks .
Light Shift progressed from victory on the Roodee three years ago to land the Investec Oaks and Gertrude Bell received quotes ranging from 16 to 1 to 20s for the fillies’ Classic after scoring under William Buick.
The home-bred filly appreciated a step up in distance when scoring at Newbury last month and relished the near mile-and-a-half trip by knuckling down to peg back front-runner Acquainted for a three-quarter-length success.
“If you win a Chester trial, then you have got to go to Epsom. There was no pace but she has done it well, handled the track and is a nice, progressive filly,” said Gosden.
Buick used forcing tactics to complete a 34 to 1 double as Masamah (9 to 1) blitzed his rivals in the Clatterbridge Cancer Research Handicap.
O'Brien goes for his third Vase
AIDAN O’BRIEN is pursing a third Chester Vase success in four years today with Rocket Man who will be joined in a two-pronged Irish attack on the Group Three Derby trial by David Wachman’s Icon Dream, writes Brian O’Connor.
The latter finished sixth behind Puncher Clynch in the Ballysax Stakes on his last start but was a winner on soft ground as a juvenile.
“He was just getting going in the Ballysax,” a spokesperson for Icon Dream’s owner Dr Marwan Koukash said yesterday. “He is by Sadler’s Wells and the step up in trip should suit him as he is a nice young stayer. He would maybe appreciate a little bit of cut in the ground.”
Rocket Man won his maiden at the Curragh last month when getting up close home and will try to emulate the subsequent Irish Derby winner Soldier Of Fortune who won today’s race in 2007 and the outsider Golden Sword who was successful for O’Brien last year.
The home team is headed by Critical Moment from the Barry Hills stable who ran third to Elusive Pimpernel in the Craven Stakes at Newmarket on his first start of the year. Peter Chapple-Hyam is represented by Morano who ran fifth in that Craven.
