Glorious Goodwood. Day Five – CopyBet
It’s the fifth and final day of this season’s Glorious Goodwood Festival on Saturday, a strong seven-race card bringing the curtain down on what’s been a memorable week on the Sussex Downs, with the highlight the 28-runner Stewards’ Cup over 6f at 15:05.
The action gets underway with the Group 3 Glorious Stakes at 13:20 and ends at 16:55 with a 1m1f handicap, which has proved a happy hunting ground for punters in recent seasons, favourites having won four of the last five runnings.
Aeronautic – Goodwood
There was a lot to like about the run of AERONAUTIC in the Copper Horse Stakes Handicap at Royal Ascot last time and he should make a bold bid off the same mark, with further improvement likely.
Joseph O’Brien hasn’t perhaps had the number of winners in Britain that he’d have been hoping for this year, but the majority of his runners have performed exceptionally well, often in strong races.
The selection raced rather keenly early on at Royal Ascot, which told inside the final furlong, but he was only beaten by three and three quarter lengths by winner French Master, who was far from disgraced when fifth in the Group 1 Goodwood Cup earlier this week.
He was judged to have run to a Racing Post Rating of 102 on that occasion and that gives him outstanding claims off his official mark of 96.
Candleford – Goodwood
Confidence should be high for William Haggas’ CANDLEFORD following last month’s ready Beverley victory and he looks a big danger to his stablemate, Al Asay, who will likely be a short-priced favourite to repeat last season’s win in the Group 3 Glorious Stakes.
The seven-year-old finished third in this race in 2023, travelling best for a long time before flattening out to finish third behind another of his stable companions, Hamish.
A runner-up in the Group 3 September Stakes at Kempton later that season, he’s been lightly raced since, winning a pair of Listed races and finishing a good fourth in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot last year.
He was lacking fitness on his reappearance in this season’s Hardwicke, but got firmly back on track at Beverley last time and has little to find on these terms.
Run Boy Run – Goodwood
The Stewards’ Cup has thrown up plenty of big-priced winners in recent years, none bigger than Get It, who came home in front at odds of 40-1 in last season’s race.
David Evans’ charge won’t be anything like those odds this time around following his recent Ascot success and better value likely lies elsewhere, namely the Richard Spencer-trained RUN BOY RUN.
The selection has been running well in some top handicaps at 7f this season, doing best of his group when finishing ninth of 27 in the Buckingham Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot and showing up well for a long way in the Bunbury Cup at Newmarket last time.
However, the top four performances of his career have come over this distance of 6f and he seems to have been overlooked in the betting, while the addition of a first-time visor (replacing cheekpieces), offers further hope for improvement.