Chester top racing tip: Improving Revich ready to step up in day three curtain raiser
- Steve Jones
- 12 May 2023
The final day of the Chester May Festival kicks off with a competitive handicap, and Tipstrr racing pundit Steve Jones has cast his expert eye over the 13 runners to share his best value bet.
There's plenty of course specialists in evidence here, including last year's winner of this race, Red Mirage, and the unlucky third-placed finisher, Revich, who comes here in fine form following his front-running third place of 10 in the Spring Cup at Newbury three weeks ago.
The only pair to beat him then were the very useful Jimi Hendrix (now rated nine pounds higher) and the Irish Lincolnshire winner, Lattam, who had beaten 26 rivals at the Curragh the previous month.
It was a big run from Revich, who rallied again when he had been headed and regained third place near the line, proving his stamina and character in the testing conditions.
Jim Crowley, who rode Revich at Newbury, is here to partner him again and stall 6 is perfectly acceptable even though it is fractionally outside the optimum group of stalls (1-5) from where the winners of eight of the last nine renewals of this race have come.
Revich was beaten just half a length in this race last year (after finishing fourth the year before) and he was unlucky not to win it because he had to wait for room before he could launch his belated challenge in the home straight.
Suggested bet: Revich to win the 13:30 at Chester
Crowley gets a good tune out of him and the seven-year-old can make up for last year's unlucky defeat in this race, in which he finished in front of today's favourite Boardman and is better off with that rival today too.
Revich's record at this venue, when racing over either seven furlongs or today's 7.6 furlongs with cut in the ground, is 11423.
Next best bet:
Red Mirage to win the 13:30 at Chester
Red Mirage is an interesting runner on his debut for John Quinn, given that he won this race on good-to-soft last year and is only two pounds higher this time.
Stall 10 is far from ideal (he had stall 2 last year) but he is often very smartly away and this looks the time to catch him, as he makes his seasonal debut, as his record when fresh is 1113.
Apart from last year's win, his only other visit here was last July last year when he finished second of 12 over the same trip on good-to-soft, also off today's mark, though he had a good draw that day too (from stall 3).
