O’Brien may send Benvenuto Cellini to Chester after Epsom delay

Aidan O’Brien’s Derby map has been redrawn by a faulty irrigation system at Epsom, and Benvenuto Cellini now looks far more likely to take the Chester route than the prep he had been aimed at on the Downs. The opening raceday at Epsom, originally set for Tuesday, April 21, was pushed back a week to Tuesday, April 28 after officials were unable to water the course, and the Listed Blue Riband Trial stayed attached to the rescheduled card. That delay has already shifted thinking inside Ballydoyle.

Benvenuto Cellini is a logical horse to move with the calendar. He is a 3-year-old Frankel colt out of Newspaperofrecord, owned by the Coolmore-Westerberg group, and his juvenile ledger reads 4 runs, 2 wins and 1 third. He won the KPMG Champions Juvenile Stakes at Leopardstown on September 13, 2025, over a mile on good-to-yielding ground, then finished third in the William Hill Futurity Trophy at Doncaster. In Derby terms, he is already in the picture as a general 6/1 shot, which makes every spring decision matter.

Chester may be more than a substitute. O’Brien has already used the Roodee as a Derby springboard with Ruler Of The World and, more recently, Lambourn, who won the Chester Vase in 2025 before taking the Derby and becoming the first Chester Vase winner to do that since Ruler Of The World in 2013. That is the part of this story that should make rival trainers uneasy. Chester is not just a convenient fill-in when Epsom slips a week; its tight turns, noise and quick recovery demands can expose a colt that is not ready. If Benvenuto Cellini handles that test, it says more than a postponed trial ever could.

There is also a wider Ballydoyle ripple here. O’Brien has been weighing other Classic types such as Constitution River, Amelia Earhart and Italy, with Constitution River potentially headed for France or another Derby path and Amelia Earhart possible for the Cheshire Oaks before any Epsom call is made. Chester Racecourse drew a crowd of more than six and a half thousand for Trials Day in 2025, when O’Brien and Ryan Moore were again central to the afternoon, and that atmosphere has long made the meeting a useful sharpening race. For Benvenuto Cellini, the revised plan may be less about inconvenience than clarity: Chester now looks like the most practical bridge to Epsom, and possibly the better one.