Paborus makes light work of absence to land Chipchase honours Paborus defied an absence of nearly a year to land the Group Three Chipchase Stakes at Newcastle for trainer Ed Bethell and owners Wathnan Racing. Last seen 364 days ago in the Criterion Stakes at York, the five-year-old gelding (15-2) took up the running two furlongs from home and stayed on grittily under Callum Rodriguez. At the line he had a length and a half in hand of Marvelman in second, with the same distance back to the Godolphin-owned Symbol Of Honour in third. Lennox Stakes on the Horizon Bethell was delighted given he had expressed fears his winner would not be fully tuned up after such a layoff. “Honestly, I thought he would definitely need the run, so I will imagine he will take a big step forward from this and it is a big pat on the back for the whole team,” said the trainer. “He has had niggly issues, but the Wathnan team have been very patient. “I was just hoping he would run a nice race today, but he has exceeded all expectations. The Lennox Stakes (at Goodwood) has always been in the back of my mind, but I will speak to the team and see what they think.” Winning jockey Rodriguez paid tribute to the Bethell team for producing the Paborus fit enough to do himself full justice in a well-contested affair. “He is a horse I have always loved and a very good training performance from Ed and the team after a full year off the track,” said Rodriguez. “He went through the race quite smoothly. We didn’t want to take him back, but we were confident we could get him into a nice rhythm. “He moved into the two good and I thought I would go ahead and win quite well, but he did just get a little bit tired late on so I suppose that is a positive.”
