Chester Cup Tips: Zoffee Can Retain Trophy

The feature race of the Friday ITV card, and indeed the whole 2025 Chester May Festival, is the Chester Cup. The race will of course be broadcast live on ITV Racing and Sky Sports Racing, and Billy Grimshaw has previewed the contest before giving a confident each-way selection...

I was on course for this raceday last year in the glorious Cheshire sunshine and saw ZOFFEE scoop the prize, and although he is no spring chicken at nine and his form fell off a cliff last season, if you'd have told me that day I could back him for the race 12 months later at double figures each-way - especially off a mark just 1lbs higher - I'd have bitten your hand off. He will have 8st8 as opposed to the 8st7 he carried to glory in  2024 on his back, as last season's 3lbs claimer Harry Davies is replaced with another in Joe Leavy, but I don't see that as a huge downgrade for all Davies was probably more high profile and did give the horse a peach to send Michael Owen, Hugo Palmer et al into raptures last year.

The local team target this race more than any other in the calendar and after finally landing the prize, I can't see them giving up the Cup without a fight and am more than happy to put a line through all his runs since the famous day last May as the horse has shown his form peters out in previous seasons before roaring back to his best at the beginning of each flat season. He was second in this race in 2023 before winning in 2024 so is the definition of a course and race specialist and at 11/1 I just cannot see him out of the extended frame, barring a huge slice of bad luck or the horse encountering an issue.

His win chance is probably marginally less than it was in 2024 as this looks a better renewal, and the horse I fear most is predictably the dual purpose and unexposed favourite East India Dock for James Owen. He's been on the go for sometime now having a full jumps campaign behind him, but is still young and presumably full of beans and it's not hard to envisage him being an all the way winner here now back on the level off what looks an emminnently exploitable mark given his jumping exploits.

7/2 is no price in a race this competitive, however, and his chance could get scuppered by another leading contender in Caballo De Mar who is a bonafide front runner and has stamina aplenty to use up around the Roodee in this unique test. George Scott's star has been prolific in recent times on the all-weather but has good turf form, winning back in September, and is five pounds well in so is another horse the field will not want getting loose on the front end. His low draw is also, obviously, a plus round here but East India Dock has also been blessed in that regard.

Zoffee is even lower than both, however and I think if he runs up to the level he showed last year - it'd probably be daft to expect improvement from a horse who is now nine and was trained to the minute last time here - he can at the very least finish in the money. When the draw had not been made I was quite keen on Joseph O'Brien's Dawn Rising coming here but was always reticent to lend him my support considering his obvious roadmap is to use this as a prep for a crack at Royal Ascot. Now he has a middle to high draw, I expect this to not be his main target and for the horse to run accordingly.

There are of course loads in here with chances and I won't delve into them all as my flag is planted with Zoffee, however one horse I may have a saver on is Tom Dascombe's Hot Fuss, who won last time out on the level at Southwell - albeit on the all weather - before running a cracker for fourth in a hurdles race at Cheltenham, which proved he's in rude health. He does most of his best work late and I suspect he will finish strongly here and two miles could be just what he's needed, so if he drifts to double figures he may well enter the staking plan too. For now though, we are with ZOFFEE.