Less Chat More Tips This Week

ALL THOUGHTS ARE MY OWN

Well, we had plenty of winners last week plus the one that got away – an 18/1 each way chance beaten a nose into fourth after being boxed in and hampered – not our day with that one I am sorry to say.

It’s been a busy week with Glorious Goodwood as I am sure you can imagine (and a tad warm wearing a suit as well, trust me), and that has left me with zero free hours to sort the news – so I haven’t.

Straight to Goodwood (and Newmarket) this Saturday, the last day of a fabulous meeting, but can we add a few more winners to the tally for 2026 – only time will tell on that one!

On to the racing…

Saturday Racing

Newmarket 1.33pm

The betting suggests this is all about Charlie Appleby’s Romantic Symphony whose form is probably the best here, but at a shortish price I am willing to look elsewhere,, mainly because the only other time she encountered ground this fast with in the Lingfield Oaks trial – and she was beaten 15 lengths. That may have been an off day, but it’s enough of a concern for me to go for a different horse, and the poor mare burdened with my vote is Revoir. She is officially rated 3lb better than the early favourite but odes have to give her 10lb thanks to the age allowance, but her best run was on a similar surface last year when third to Silent Love, beaten less than a length in the Group Three Princess Royal Stakes. Two second places in Listed company this year show she still has the ability needed, and if a first time visor brings out her very best then surely she is the value call.    

Goodwood 2.25pm

A proper battle of the generations as Al Aasy looks to make it three wins in a row having won this in 2024 and 2025. He is now an astonishing nine years old but he doesn’t act like it, winning on his last start at Beverley with the minimum of fuss. As the only course winner in the field, we know for a fact he handles the track (some of these won’t, trust me), he looks the one to be on – though the next generation will be queuing up to take his crown. Ghostwriter is officially 1lb his superior but good as he is, he has never won beyond a mile (though he does have good placed form to be fair), while In My Teens intrigues, stepping up from handicap company in the J P McManus colours for Gavon Cromwell as they look to bring more prize money back over the Irish Sea.      

Goodwood 3.00pm

Everyone is telling me Waardah is the one to beat here and they may well be proved right, but I just can’t see it. She did win this last season, beating Danielle by three-quarters of a length, but that was as a three-year-old receiving 10lb from her elders, and Danielle is back for her revenge at level weights now. Both seem to have been targeted here, with the selection winning at York at a short price, but with the Gosden team in good form, and winning this race in 2016, 2019, and 2020 and knowing exactly the sort needed, she certainly looks the better value of the two.  

Goodwood 3.35pm

If you are going to pick a handicap pick a doozie – a full field expected for the Stewards Cup over the six furlongs and as ridiculously competitive as always, though I have tipped the winner at least once, and I did that by profiling through all the statistics so we will try the same again.  In the last 15 years (no point in going back any further in my opinion), the standouts that I will use are: five winners were drawn in the bottom half, but 10 from the top half, only one winner was priced at bigger than 25/1 at the off (I have to use early prices for obvious reasons), 14 were aged six or younger, 12 came from the first 10 in the betting, ALL were rated 95 or above, 14 had raced in the last 60 days, and all of them had raced at least twice this season. Put that lot (with the exception of the draw) into the mixer and we get down to a shortlist of 10 – so it looks like I will need to use the draw, so I will remove any drawn lower than 14 in a 20 runner field, and suddenly I am left with four – Soldier’s Tree, Sondad, Tuco Salamanca, and Far Above Dream. My next stop was their trainers and jockeys (little to see here though the Easterby team responsible for Sondad did win this in 2011 with Hoof It at 13/2) but that’s where the stats run out, so Sondad it is. The five-year-old son of Washington DC has won two of his last three starts at Epsom and the Curragh which does leave him needing a career best, but he is of an age that we may not have seen the best of him yet.  

Goodwood 4.10pm

I must have seen something the odds compilers haven’t because I am pretty sweet on the chances of Wild Desert ahead of the 4.10pm at Goodwood, a seven furlong handicap. Charlie Appleby’s filly has to shoulder top-weight, which is the only downside I can see, other than a below par effort last time out in Listed class at Newmarket. I can forgive her that as it was her first run since last September when she was beaten a head in a Grade one at Woodbine in Canada, which in turn followed a third in the Group Two

 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket’s July course. She actually is the proverbial Group horse in a handicap and unless she has failed to train on, she is comfortably the best horse in this line-up.

Goodwood 4.45pm

I get the feeling at first glance that this could be a decent maiden, and I’ll be surprised if some of these don’t go on to win races in the months ahead – but we still need to find the winner today first. Andrew Balding has won three of the last five runnings which is some record, and he sends Chester second Regency Royal here as the son of Calyx looks to go one better. Add in Charlie Appleby’s Al Wathba, a 900,000 Euros yearling who was beaten a length and a half by Vintage Stakes second Haffner on his debut at Newmarket and we are already looking at a decent race, and I haven’t even started yet. Market Leader was a beaten favourite at Windsor and is clearly held in some regard, but after watching (and tipping) Mans Best Friend on Thursday, I am sticking to the same formula with Speakers Corner. Aidan O’Brien’s two-year-old looked as if he would learn plenty when finishing fourth at the Curragh on debut, nudged along to learn his trade and finishing well over the seven furlongs he faces again here. The son of Wootton Basset holds most of the top Group One entries later in the season, and with Ryan Moore riding as well as ever I can see him winning this, whatever the price.   

Sean’s Suggestion:

Wild Desert each way 4.10pm Goodwood