ADELAIDE RIVER can give Aidan O'Brien another victory in the Boodles Chester Vase Stakes (3.15pm) on day one of the Boodles Chester May Festival. And with success in the Group Three feature on the Roodee the three-year-old can book his ticket to next month's Betfred Derby at Epsom.
The Ballydoyle handler has won this race a record 10 times and several of his previous winners have gone on to contest the Derby, with Ruleroftheworld winning both races in 2013 and Treasure Beach finishing second at Epsom before taking the Irish Derby following his Vase victory two years earlier.
Adelaide River can at least become part of O'Brien's Derby team at Epsom on June 3 by this time gettin gthe better of John & Thady Gosden's favourite Arrest. Adelaide River won his maiden at Dundalk last August, but has yet to win in Pattern company despite running well in defeat. He was runner-up to Kubrick in France and second to Crypto Force in the Group Two Beresford Stakes at the Curragh in September. The son of O'Brien's 2014 Derby hero Australia was then third behind Dubai Mile and the aforementioned Arrest stepped up to Group One level for the first time in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud. He has a bit to find with Arrest on that running, but O'Brien's juveniles invariably improve for stepping up to this near 1m4f. In the past his contenders in this have tended to handle the unique twists and turns of the Roodee and Adelaide River, under Ryan Moore, can do so as well and turn the form around with Arrest.
