Metier (5-1) flew home late under Saffie Osborne to grab victory in the tote Chester Cup on final day of the 2023 Boodles Chester May Festival.
Harry Fry's dual purpose star – a winner of the Grade One Tolworth Hurdle over Jumps in 2021 and November Handicap on the Flat at Doncaster – came late and fast to collar Zoffee (11-1) and land the prestigious handicap on the Roodee. Emiyn had set much of the running with Metier sitting well back in the field. But as they turned for home in the 2m2f contest the well-backed 11-4 favourite Call My Bluff, who was in third spot under John Egan for much of the race, came through to take over from Emiyn. But he looked a sitting duck from those coming from out of the pack and first Zoffee took over in the lead. As they battled in the run to the line Metier came down the outside to land the victory by a neck from Zoffee – trained by Hugo Palmer at former Liverpool FC and England forward Michael Owen's Manor House stables in Cheshire. Call My Bluff was three-quarters-of-a-length back in third with Ian Williams' Law Of The Sea (40-1), who had a troubled passage, a further three-quarters-of-a-length adrift back in fourth under Scouse jockey Franny Norton. Zoffee's stable-mate and last year's third Rajinsky was fifth.
Winning jockey Osborne said: "It didn't really go right through the race, I was too far back and he was all guts. I was saying what a tough horse he is, but he's also extremely talented and still fairly unexposed at this trip on the Flat. You'd like to think there's more left in the tank. He's just got a lot of ability and for a big horse he's very well balanced to go round a track like this. I was having to make up ground on a part of a track that I didn't really want to have to, but he was making it feel very easy and I didn't want to check his momentum."
