Dual Derby winner Lambourn returned to Chester with another victory on Friday, making a successful seasonal comeback in the Deepbridge Huxley Stakes over 1m2f70y on good ground.
Lambourn Back To Winning Ways With Huxley Stakes Win at Chester
Lambourn made a winning return to action in the Group 2 Deepbridge Huxley Stakes at Chester on Friday, giving Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore another notable May Festival success with a colt whose profile was built around this course 12 months ago.
The four-year-old came back to the Roodee for his first run of the 2026 campaign after last season’s Chester Vase, Epsom Derby and Irish Derby victories.
Friday’s Huxley asked him to restart over a shorter trip than the Classic distances that defined his 2025 peak, with first-time cheekpieces added for the comeback.
The race was run for a first prize of £96,407 and attracted a nine-runner field.
Among the better-known opposition were Bay City Roller, King’s Gambit, Royal Rhyme and Starford, all of whom added depth to one of the sharper middle-distance contests on the final day of Chester’s May Meeting.
Huxley Stakes Result 2026
🥇LAMBOURN (6/4 fav)
🥈Bay City Roller (9/2)
🥉Ice Max (16/1)
Winning Trainer: Aidan O’Brien
Winning Jockey: Ryan Moore
Huxley Stakes Key Facts and Race Details
- Race: Deepbridge Huxley Stakes (Group 2)
- Venue: Chester
- Date: Friday, 8 May 2026
- Distance: 1m 2f 70y
- Going: Good
- Runners: 9
- Winner: Lambourn
- Trainer: Aidan O’Brien
- Jockey: Ryan Moore
- First prize: £96,407
Lambourn Provided Ryan Moore With a Nineth Huxley Stakes Win
Ryan Moore
Lambourn’s return mattered not just because it produced another black-type success, but because it showed he could begin his new season with a clean, straightforward win at a track already closely linked to his rise.
Chester again served as an important marker for the horse’s campaign, even in a race shorter than the trips over which he made his name last year.
Lambourn remains one of the more recognisable middle-distance horses in training after his Derby and Irish Derby double, so any successful comeback immediately reshapes the early-summer older-horse picture.
A Group 2 win on return also strengthens confidence that he has trained on from three to four.
For Chester, the result added another high-profile race to a meeting that continues to act as a staging post for major Flat performers.
While for O’Brien and Moore, it was another reminder that the May Festival remains a productive stop for horses with bigger summer targets.
Moore was recording a record extending nineth win in the Huxley Stakes, having first won the Chester race in 2009 with Doctor Freemantle.
And Lambourn’s win game Aidan O’Brien a fifth success in the Group Two, with Await The Dawn his first in 2011.
WATCH: Lambourn Winning The 2025 Epsom Derby
