Let's talk about... Chester Cup | Recollections of the heritage handicap

What are your favourite recollections of the Chester Cup? Share your thoughts with us via racingfeedback@sportinglife.com and they will appear at the foot of the article.

Ben Linfoot - Trip To Paris 2015

The Chester Cup is a great horse race. Steeped in history, run since 1824, this is only the 13th time in 196 years that they haven't raced two laps of the Roodee in the most fabulous of settings for this prestigious prize.

I've enjoyed it ever since I fell in love with racing. I'm too young to remember Sea Pigeon, but I remember Top Cees winning amid controversy in 1995 and when following up two years later, while there have been plenty of fantastic renewals since then.

Trip To Paris stands out in 2015.

A cheap purchase costing 20,000gns, he went on to win nearly eighteen times that purchase price in a career that burned brightest in his four-year-old season.

Gelded just before his four-year-old campaign, he ran 11 times in 2015, winning on four occasions including an Ascot Gold Cup, while he was third under a penalty at Goodwood and ran fourth in the Melbourne Cup as well.

His handicapping highlight, though, came at Chester.

Ed Dunlop's charge was 3lb well-in under a penalty for an easy win at Ripon 11 days previously, but rain-softened ground was an unknown and his draw in 11 wasn't ideal, so he was sent off 10/1 despite his upwardly-mobile profile.

Settled in the mid-pack by Graham Lee, he got shuffled back a little on the final circuit and had plenty to do five furlongs from home, which is probably when he hit a top price of 250/1 in-running on Betfair.

To be fair, he could've hit those odds at any point in the next three furlongs, as he still had loads to do rounding the turn for home as six horses seemed to have broken clear on the front end.

There was a significant gap to the white-faced Trip To Paris after that, but Lee got a lovely tune out of him in the straight and his turn of foot late in proceedings was a crucial weapon. He got up to win by three-quarters-of-a-length.

His win at Royal Ascot came in similar style and he'll always be remembered for that. But his last-gasp Chester Cup victory was a perfect example of the sort of thrilling conclusion this great race has provided over the years.

Mike Vince - Mamlook 2010

Backing the favourite in the Chester Cup has usually been the road to Poor House Avenue - since 2004 when Anak Pekan won the first of his back-to-back wins just one has prevailed, and it remains amongst racing’s greatest mysteries that he won the following year at 16/1!

The one that bucked the trend, memorably, was Mamlook in 2010.

Ex-Irish, when trained by Kevin Prendergast for Hamdan Al Maktoum, he had finished second in the Cesarewitch the October before and having won a big Grade 2 hurdle in January and finished fourth to Get Me Out Of Here in the Tote Gold Trophy, he had been amongst the also-rans in big handicap hurdles at both the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree.

David Pipe was trying to win a race that had eluded his father’s rare, but usually well-executed, Flat raids.

Mamlook was drawn in stall five and Richard Hughes, who rode him at Newmarket, was back on board.

It was 7/1 the field and that said it all with Mamlook ‘the jolly’ having been backed in from 9/1.

It was a typical Chester Cup. Maximum field and the charge of the Heavy Brigade from the start.

Liszt, one of the Marwan Koukash runners, emerged as the pacemaker in a rough and competitive race - he caused all sorts of trouble hanging left off the final bend, but Hughes delivered a riding masterclass in the colours of Peter Deal - the Make A Stand silks.

He chased the leaders, got the gap a furlong out, hit the front and just held on in a blanket finish, with outsider Tastahil, Halla San and Irish raider Majestic Concorde beaten a head, three quarters of a length and a short head.

Down at Nicolashayne it was ‘Son 1-0 Dad’, but this was Richard Hughes at his best - as simple as that.

Send us your views

Send in your favourite recollections of the Chester Cup and other contributions to racingfeedback@sportinglife.com while if you’ve any ideas for more topics you want covering over the coming days and weeks, please let us know.

Feedback from readers

Laurie Cole: Having won the Chester Cup with Overturn in 2011, Donald McCain saddled both Overturn and Ile De Re in 2012 and the predominantly jumps trainer once again worked the oracle with the pair finishing first and second, followed by Mark Johnston and Aidan O’Brien trained horses in third, fourth and fifth. A fantastic achievement by Donald, made even more memorable by the fact that I won a few pounds on the reverse forecast.

John Spain: Hi my fondest memory of the Chester Cup was in 1985. I live in Chester and on all race days I used to get up early and go to the stables which was outside the racecourse then and not many but some of the horses used to exercise quite early on the outside of racetrack to save the grass on the inside. On the morning of the the Chester Cup in 1985 I walked down from the stables to the racecourse with Willie Carson who was on Morgan’s Choice, he did do a bit of exercise not much but Willie was quite excited by what exercise he had done. I did ask what he thought his chances might be, he said it would probably run very well, well when the Chester Cup started Morgan’s Choice was kept in the middle of the horses even when they came into the short straight at Chester. Morgan’s Choice was still in midfield even with half a furlong to go he still wasn’t in the picture, but somehow Willie galvanised him and the rest is history it was the most exciting finish of the Chester Cup I’ve ever seen, and if you watch the race you may agree.

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