The four-day Glorious Goodwood Festival gets underway on Tuesday with the feature race of day one already proving to cause a little controversy.
It was announced that Stradivarius’ legendary partnership with Frankie Dettori would be broken up, and the 20-time winning 8-year-old would instead be ridden by Andrea Atzeni in the Goodwood Cup.
Dettori has more winners in his long career with Stradivarius than any other horse, including many Group 1’s, but recent unconvincing form and poor off-course attitude have led owner Bjorn Nielsen to call up Atzeni instead.
Atzeni does have riding experience with Stradivarius, winning all three of his previous rides and two of which came in this race in 2017 and 2018 respectively, but the latter of those two was the last time they raced together.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: July 24th, 1:00 P.M. (BST)
William Hill have Stradivarius as the second favourite at 3.00, narrowly behind Kyprios, trained by Aidan O’Brien, who is at 2.62.
Kyprios has won all three of his races this season under Ryan Moore, including the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot last month where Stradivarius was only good enough for third.
At 5.00 is Trueshan, winner of his last five outings, but he is drifting in the market as the softer ground he prefers is looking more unlikely.
On to Wednesday, where eyes will be drawn to the Sussex Stakes and hero in the making Baaeed, who is aiming for a ninth win from nine starts, all over 1 mile.
Winner of the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, Baaeed will again be ridden by Jim Crowley, and is currently the clear 1.28 favourite with William Hill.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: July 24th, 1:00 P.M. (BST)
His other three runs since a victory at last year’s Glorious Goodwood have all been Group 1 wins; the Prix de Moulin at Longchamp, the Queen Elizabeth II at Ascot and Newbury’s Lockinge Stakes.
He has never come up against Coroebus, though. The Godolphin-owned mount of William Buick has career figures reading four wins and a second with the latest two being Group 1 wins, including the St James’ Palace Stakes at Ascot. At 4.50, Charlie Appleby’s runner could be the one to finally stop Baaeed.
Also trying to end the dominance of the William Haggas trained 4-year-old will be last year’s winner of this race, Alcohol Free.
Ridden by Oisin Murphy twelve months ago, the filly is coming in to form at the right time again under new jockey Rob Hornby after being the somewhat surprise winner of the Newmarket July Cup earlier this month when she went off at 15.00, and is 17.00 with William Hill for the Sussex.
Order Of Australia, twice narrowly beaten by Baaeed, could be a strong each-way chance at 15.00.
