By Rhys Jones
The Chester Boodle May Festival is the racecourse’s feature meeting of the season which not only births some of the best horses and future stars but also unleashes a blossom of colour, class, and culture as it marks the city’s summer social season.
Unlike other racecourses, Chester isn’t the biggest, and it isn’t the most flashy, but what it does promise is some of the best fashion, tradition, and memories; it is a meeting that everyone looks forward to and brings the city to life every single year.
Apart from being one of the biggest social events in the north west, although the meeting does not have the appeal of some of the biggest courses in the country like Epsom Downs and Newmarket, the Chester May Festival is one of the most important meetings in the British flat racing calendar, and some of the greats have passed by the Roodee, and there are soon more to come.
With the prestigious Chester Cup taking place on the final day of the meeting, the opening day of the festival, Trials Day is usually where racing fans see some of the season’s brightest horses make their seasonal debuts.
The Chester Vase and Cheshire Oaks were the two most notable races on the opening day last year, the former won by Lambourn, who went on to win the biggest race of them all, the Epsom Derby, and the Cheshire Oaks, won by Minnie Hauk, who completed the Oaks trifecta and also came a respectable second in one of the world’s most prestigious flat races, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Paris Longchamp.
Horses parading before the Chester Vase
So even though it’s little and basic, there is nothing that can take away the stars that are born during the Boodles May Festival, and for racing fans, it is a meeting that is a massive tale-telling sign for the upcoming season.
However, aside from the horses and the racing, it is the people who make the festival what it is. As historical as the racecourse being the oldest still in operation with racing dating back to the 1500s, the May Boodles Festival wouldn’t be the spectacle it is without the people and the atmosphere the racegoers create.
For one of Britain’s most visually unique racecourses, the May Festival brings out the best in it. The sea of colour, the suits, the dresses, the fascinators, and the fashion are almost as big as the racing.
The city streets fill up hours before the racing even begins, from Watergate Street to Bridge Street; the city centre is buzzing, a feeling that only the Boodles Festival can create in Chester and a feeling that can’t be replicated elsewhere.
Whether it is packed bars, booked-out hotels, or the major tourism that the festival brings, the racing is massive for Chester and its economy, and whether you’re an average racegoer or an owner, the festival only brings positives to the city and will always be one of the most unique racing festivals in the country.
The May Festival not only attracts big crowds but also attracts the best trainers, owners and jockeys like Ryan Moore and Aidan O’Brien, and just like the Epsom Derby or the Ascot Gold Cup, the Chester Cup is always a big race that every jockey wants to win, and multiple-time champion jockey Oisin Murphy is one who got that feeling in 2017 aboard Montaly and explained how it is a race that has such a special feeling.
Interview with multiple-time champion jockey Oisin Murphy
Across the UK and Ireland, the Chester May Festival will always be one of the flat season’s best meetings throughout the year. Without it some of racing’s best horses don’t have the opportunity to learn through the early years of their careers, and as for the city, the May Festival is one of the biggest ways of populating the city and bringing new faces to town.
The festival simply isn’t just your average race meeting; it is a celebration of the city and its culture, and it is a festival that will continue to serve the people, the owners, and the trainers in a unique way other racecourses just can’t offer.
