Metier surges to Chester Cup glory Metier finished with a flourish to land the £150,000 tote Chester Cup for Harry Fry and a jubilant Saffie Osborne. A Grade One winner over hurdles a couple of years ago, Metier has made his mark on the Flat having secured last season's November Handicap at Doncaster and returned to form with a second place in the Queen’s Cup at Musselburgh last month. Metier was well-fancied prior to Chester's highlight and justified his billing in style. The seven-year-old was positioned towards the back of the pack, but began to make headway before the home turn, powering up the straight to win by a neck. Zoffee was the frontrunner during the final stages of the race, disputing with favourite Call My Bluff. However, Zoffee was not able to withstand the late surge of Metier and had to settle for second place. Osborne said: “It didn’t really go right through the race, I was too far back and he was all guts. “I was saying what a tough horse he is, but he’s also extremely talented and still fairly unexposed at this trip on the Flat. You’d like to think there’s more left in the tank. “He’s just got a lot of ability and for a big horse he’s very well balanced to go round a track like this. I was having to make up ground on a part of a track that I didn’t really want to have to, but he was making it feel very easy and I didn’t want to check his momentum.” Fry, paying his first ever visit to Chester, said: “We’ve had some good runs and near misses in big races, but this means such a lot — it keeps our head above the parapet. “We knew the draw (stall 14) wasn’t ideal, but Saffie sat as far forward as she could. She’s given him an absolutely wonderful ride. “Watching him go past here on the final circuit he was 12th, but all he’s done in the straight is keep rolling and rolling. “He’s shown all his best form on slower ground, but getting the right horses at the right time is really what it boils down to. “It’s my first time here at Chester and walking round the course I thought ‘what an amazing place’.” Ben Curtis, rider of the narrowly beaten runner-up Zoffee, was proud of his performance in defeat. He said: “That was a hell of a training performance by Hugo (Palmer), to have him near spot-on after seven months off. “The race went well for us, it was a good battle to the line but possibly the winner might have been more race-fit. Take nothing away from our horse though, he’s run a blinder.”
