May Festival at Chester 2024

Although other major races take place around ‘The Roodee’ on a seasonal basis, the May meeting or ‘May Festival’ is the highlight of the year despite its midweek placing in the calendar.

The Chester Cup, a handicap over 2¼ miles, is the feature race of the day, mostly because of its history and what it brings to the betting industry. The rest of the meeting is still incredibly important to some of the major trainers and owners in the game as it contains three genuine Classic trials for the three-year-olds.

The Cheshire Oaks, a Listed race over 1 mile, 3 furlongs, is a key prep for The Oaks at Epsom while both the Listed Dee Stakes over a mile-and-a-quarter and the Chester Vase (Group 3) over the full mile-and-a-half are considered very strong trials for The Derby itself.