Talented Irish jockey travels to Chester for one ride on 14-1 shot

I was scrolling through the Saturday cards on Friday morning to look for some tips for myracing followers. Upon looking at the Chester card, I found something quite intriguing and interesting.

One of the best young riders in Ireland, Gavin Ryan, has been booked for one ride in the 3.25pm. You would assume it was an Irish raider but it is not, it is a horse trained by David O’Meara.

I checked to see if Gavin was serving a ban in Ireland and it does not look like he is. So why is he travelling all the way over to Chester to ride one horse for a British-based trainer?

3.25 Chester

The feature race at Chester’s Saturday meeting is the Listed City Plate Stakes, ran over 7f. Gavin Ryan will ride Azano, who is currently 14-1 with William Hill at the time of writing this article.

A five-year-old Oasis Dream gelding, he is winless since 2019 but has run with credit on four starts for this yard. His best effort of the lot was when second in Listed class at York last month.

There is no doubt that he has to improve on that effort to win this but the jockey booking looks very eye-catching. To make things even more interesting, O’Meara also trains one of the hot favourites for the race, the four-timer seeking Rhoscolyn.

Ryan is one of the best young riders in Ireland and this is a long way to travel just for a spin out. He has no other booked rides in Ireland or Britain over the weekend so all of his eggs are in one basket so to speak.

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