Huxley Stakes betting with William Hill

Run since 1999 and now Chester’s only Group Two race, this is an early-season treat to savour, and William Hill has all the Huxley Stakes betting you need as the flat racing campaign warms up at one of England’s most picturesque tracks.

The Huxley Stakes started out as a Listed race before being bumped up to Group Three status in 2005 and then promoted again prior to the 2018 running.

Named after a nearby rural village, quite an honour considering the population of Huxley was around 250 at the last census, Chester House proved an appropriate inaugural winner under jockey Kieren Fallon for trainer Henry Cecil at the end of the last century.

Fallon repeated the trick on Sir Michael Stoute’s Adilabad two years later and the Barbados-born Brit’s record of six Huxley Stakes victories looks unlikely to be challenged for some time, with no other trainer close.

The same cannot be said for four-time winning jockey Richard Hills - three of whose victories coming aboard Stoute stable star Maraahel - with the retired rider’s Huxley Stakes record ceded to Ryan Moore in recent years.

Given his book of rides for Aidan O’Brien and Ballydoyle, Moore looks sure to add to his current haul of five successes in the near future, and you can count on William Hill to have all the Huxley Stakes betting angles covered ahead of time.

Huxley Stales betting - trainers to watch

Stoute’s Huxley Stakes glory days of the late noughties - when the veteran handler won this prize four times in five runnings - may be in the past, but he still tends to pop up with a likely sort when Chester’s May Festival rolls around.

Cannock Chase gave Stoute his sixth Huxley Stakes victory in 2016 after successive second-place finishes from the 10-time champion trainer’s charges.

The following year, 4/1 shot Poet’s Word almost made it two Stoute successes on the bounce when going down by a neck to Aidan O’Brien favourite Deauville, Ballydoyle’s first Huxley Stakes winner for half a decade.

John Gosden won the Huxley Stakes with 11/1 outsider Debussy in 2010 and 4/1 shot Maverick Wave in 2015, so the Sussex handler is due another victory at a backable price.

Remarkably, Richard Fahey’s 2018 success with Forest Ranger came after the Yorkshire-based trainer had filled fourth place in the previous four runnings, three times with Gabrial and once with Gabrial’s Kaka.

Gabrial also finished third both as a four-year-old in 2013 and behind his winning stablemate five years later.

Fahey is a trainer to take seriously during the May Festival, with the multiple Group One winner also showing a couple of Chester Cups and a Chester Vase in his back catalogue.

Huxley Stales betting - jockeys to watch

Ryan Moore became the second rider to win the Huxley Stakes two years in a row for different trainers with Marco Botti’s Marcret in 2012, having taken the laurels aboard Aidan O’Brien’s Await the Dawn 12 months earlier.

Moore repeated the trick in 2016 and 2017, courtesy of Cannock Chase and Deauville, and boasts a Huxley Stakes success all the way back in 2009, when he rode favourite Doctor Fremantle to victory for Sir Michael Stoute.

William Buick was aboard both of his old boss John Gosden’s winners in 2010 and 2015, and the Norway-born pilot steered Folkswood to a respectable third-place finish in 2017 for trainer Charlie Appleby and the Godolphin stable.

Tony Hamilton followed up his Chester Vase win on Richard Fahey’s Mickdaam in 2012 with a Huxley Stakes victory six years later for the same trainer aboard Forest Ranger.

Given Fahey’s obvious affection for this race, expect Hamilton to pick up a few more interesting Huxley Stakes rides in the coming years.

Huxley Stakes betting trends to follow

The race is open to four-year-old horses and older, but only three-time winner Maraahel has managed to take the Huxley Stakes as a six-year-old in its relatively-short history, when Sir Michael Stoute’s Chester specialist completed the triptych in 2007.

Recent Huxley Stakes winners tend to have come from the top three in the betting, but favouritism hasn’t worked out particularly well of late, with a number of hotpots going down at short odds.

Most Huxley Stakes winners over the past decade or so went into the race with at least one Group race success in the bag, and usually already had a run under their belts that season.

The vast majority had previously won over the 1m2f distance, with around half going into the Huxley stakes off the back of victory in their last run.

Visit news.williamhill.com to follow all the latest Huxley Stakes betting.