LAST week’s Time Will Tell took us to the end of the first day of the Chester May meeting – which included Sir Dragonet’s impressive win in the Chester Vase (119 sectional rating) and Mehdaayih’s authoritative victory in the Cheshire Oaks (108) – so the obvious place to start is to look at what happened there on Thursday and Friday.

“More rain” is one of the things that happened, with the result that the ground went from “good to soft” on that first day to “heavy” by the end of the third. Time analysis is trickier when a target is moving like this, though sectionals help to establish which overall times are reflective of conditions and which have also been affected by pace.