THURSDAY Day Three
Wednesday was another successful day for Oisin Murphy who claimed the Sussex Stakes with Alcohol Free following up her excellent exploits at Royal Ascot and another famous winner for the owner Jim Smith. Managed a winner after all the non runners when Armor took the Molecomb Stakes, still enjoying all the racing here and at Galway.
We are only looking at the major races each day not the entire card so focused on the main Group Races or major handicaps. So lets look at Day Three which is of course Ladies Day where the feature race will be the Group 1 Nassau Stakes worth £300,000 this year, prize money having been reduced throughout the return to racing;
Going - Good to soft (Good in places).
Weather - Generally sunny, bit breezy and high 18C
2:25 Qatar Richmond Stakes
6f (Group 2) 7 runners.
Just the seven runners for our first Group contest today, the Richmond stakes over six furlongs for 2yo's only, just over £85k to the winner won last year by Supremacy (Clive Cox) and that yard is represented this time by Caturra. Based on the betting and the ratings the top two of Perfect Power and Asymmetric seem to be the ones to focus on while support for Hollie Doyle's KHUNAN could be worth following, currently 12/1 shame there's only the seven runners and two places.
Selections: Khunan (each way) @16/1. 2nd 16/1
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| Return of silly hats this year ... |
3:00 1m 3f 218y Qatar Gordon Stakes (Group 3).
A good quality event for the field of just eight three year olds here, Aiden O'Brien won this last year with Mogul and has a pair today looking to follow that, Frankie Dettori booked for Sir Lucan while Ryan Moore has picked Wordsworth and that looks like the right pick for us too. This year's Epsom Derby form is brought by Third Realm who was fifth then, as well as Youth Spirit (8th) and both should find this track a little easier to negotiate.
Selection: Wordsworth.
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| Fancy Blue winning the 2020 Nassau Stakes |
1m 2f [6 runners]
Also labelled as the Fillies Group 1 today this has attracted six runners for ladies day. Fancy Blue (pictured above) won this last year for Donnacha O'Brien and his father will be represented by the pair of Empress Josephine (L Dettori) along with Joan of Arc (Ryan Moore). I however am siding with the home challenge from Audarya as James Fanshawe's talented globe trotting mare has already won at the Breeders Cup, was runner up at Royal Ascot behind Love, and won't even mind any rain should that continue to fall this week.
Selection: Audarya.
That's all for Thursday, results will be updated during the afternoon, and we had a very successful day today with two winners and profit on the day, and we will soon have an update for Friday which will feature the £300,000 Qatar King George Stakes (Group 2) where Battaash will be looking to win for the fifth time. Add in three further top quality races and Friday of the Qatar Goodwood Festival has to be one of the most enthralling day's racing in the entire calendar.
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