Ormonde Stakes preview: 'I think he might get brushed aside up the straight by better horses' An excellent renewal of the Ormonde Stakes takes place on Thursday at 3.05pm at the Chester May Festival over an extended mile and five furlongs at 3.05pm. Aidan O’Brien’s Jan Brueghal heads the market with last year’s winner Illinois also in the mix. Journalist and broadcaster Johnny Ward is joined by Stephen Harris to preview Chester and Harris makes a case for a Varian contender. Stephen Harris previews the Ormonde Stakes Jan Brueghel, who Ryan’s been booked for. I think maybe that explains the market. He looks a short price now. We haven’t seen him for nine months and Illinois won the race last year. He’s gone the other way. The one I thought was interesting, perhaps from stall one - again, it sounds like nonsense in these staying races, was initially Rahiebb. He should be able to get a good pitch, and Ray Dawson’s booked. Good, young jockey and Varian is going well. He’s had five winners in the last fortnight, a 25% strike rate. Roger doesn’t waste his runners. Rahiebb hasn’t actually managed to win on the turf. He’s a maiden on the turf after five starts. He did win on the all-weather, but his last run was in the St Leger where he just got chinned by Scandinavia, and that was a really good run. He was left with a bit of ground to make up. He looked like he was going to fall out the back of the television turning home, and he ran on very strongly late. So if he can hold his pitch in what should be a truly run race, I think he’ll be finishing strongly, and he’s bound to be fit given his connections. But the horse I didn’t fancy, one of the middle pins, was Al Karim of Karl Burke’s. When he won at Musselburgh first time out, he was under the pump before the home turn, and I’d be surprised if he was quick enough for all that. He’ll probably go off in front. I think he might get brushed aside up the straight by better horses. So I thought it was a very hard race to have an opinion on with Aidan having the front two off breaks, but I did think that the Varian horse around about 4/1 was a fair price on form. Watch the show in full
