Glorious Goodwood

As it’s the opening day of Glorious Goodwood today, I thought I’d preview a couple of the races that will kick off the five days of festivities on the Sussex Downs. Sadly, I haven’t had time to do as much as I’d have liked and I have to go to work shortly, but here’s a quick look at the feature race, the Group Two Lennox Stakes (a.k.a Betfair Cup).

The contest will feature a mouth watering rematch between the July Cup second and third, Sir Michael Stoute’s Main Aim and the South African talent J J The Jet Plane. As ever, I’ve tried to come at it from a trends point of view, though it is important to note that this race has only been contested nine times, so the trends may not be completely reliable anyway.

The strongest trend is related to the distance, as eight times out of nine, the winner had already scored over 7f. The market trends send out a mixed message, as only one favourite has won, yet seven times out of nine the winner has come from the front three in the betting, suggesting we shouldn’t be looking too far away from the main players, even if heading the betting appears to be a negative.

The lowest official rating of a winner to date is 108, with the next lowest at 110. I’m quite happy to rule out Express Wish and Regal Parade based on their 107 ratings and I’m crossing off Finjaan, as the colt is yet to score over 7f.

One trend I expected to crop up, failed to materialise – only two winners had previously won over Goodwood’s quirky undulations and that figure includes Nayyir, who won the race back to back in 2002 and 2003. Last time out form doesn’t appear hugely important either, with only three from nine scoring on their previous outing.

All previous winners have been aged three to five, so it doesn’t bode well for the older horses, allowing me to rule out the six year olds (Balthazaar’s Gift and Asset, who appears unlikely to run anyway).

The only other thing I spotted, was that six of the nine had previously won a Group race. I’m ruling out Dream Eater based on that, as the grey doesn’t look classy enough to win today.

This whittles the field down to the front three in the market, which fits quite well with the aforementioned market trends and means I’m simply going to have to oppose the favourite, Main Aim. Stoute’s team are in good form, as displayed by the recent 1-2-3 finish in the King George and Main Aim did beat JJTJP (pictured, above) in the July Cup by half a length, but I think the Stoute colt gets 6f better than JJTJP and the return to 7f is going to favour the South African, who was doing his best work that day in the closing stages. These two should finish ahead of Ouqba on the form at least, so I’ll be backing J J The Jet Plane at a shade over 4/1 on the exchanges.

15:25 Goodwood
J J The Jet Plane
1 pt @ 4/1 (Sporting Bet)