Wednesday 9 May 2018 13:19, UK
Chester open an exciting summer of racing on Wednesday when the Boodles May Festival gets underway with significant Derby and Oaks trials.
The traditional season-opening meeting on The Roodee sees some major changes for 2018, with the classic generation coming to the fore on Wednesday and the feature Chester Cup moving to Friday.
That means the Centennial Celebration MBNA Chester Vase becoming Wednesday's highlight, a race which sees all-conquering trainer Aidan O'Brien seek a sixth successive winner.
O'Brien has farmed the Group 3 race for more than a decade with seven more successes having come since Soldier Of Fortune became his first Vase winner in 2007.
Last year he sent out the first three finishers, but it was Vase runner-up Wings Of Eagles who went on to taste Derby glory at Epsom less than a month later.
O'Brien runs three again this year, with Hunting Horn appearing to be the most-fancied and a possible favourite after finishing strongly to claim third in the Sandown Classic Trial last month.
The Ballydoyle trainer also runs Flag Of Honour and the once-raced Family Tree, who would be an apt winner ridden by his son Donnacha, who partnered the stable's Saxon Warrior to 2000 Guineas victory at Newmarket last Saturday.
Godolphin's Ispolini and Young Rascal, who represents the William Haggas yard, are the shortest-priced British runners for the 12-furlong contest.
O'Brien is also three-handed in the earlier Oaks trial, although only one of his trio - Dramatically - has yet won a race.
Magic Wand, beaten in two maidens, is likely to be shortest of the three in the market and she could end up battling Ralph Beckett's Kinaesthesia for favouritism.
Kinaesthesia battled to win a Nottingham maiden at the end of last year and is bred to be well suited by Wednesday's trip - she is a 33/1 shot for Oaks glory next month.
The Festival gets underway with one of the season's best two-year-old races so far, the Lily Agnes Conditions Stakes, which features five previous winners including likely favourite No Lippy, a debut scorer at Doncaster late last month.
