Goodwood Thursday analysis: Who's having a good week - and who's enduring a bad one?

Magical Mick the star as Opera Singer hits the high notes

Right then, 23 races down and 14 to go.

Time enough for a few new faces to make a splash and time to issue this year’s eagerly awaited Glorious Goodwood ‘Good Week, Bad Week’ bulletin.

Charlie and William

A ropey Royal Ascot is in the rear-view mirror and NOTABLE SPEECH’s decisive Sussex success (hard on the heels of Aomori City’s Vintage victory) completed a rasping end to July for the Godolphin duo.

The RP ‘Big Race Wins’ section for Appleby now contains a remarkable 44 entries for 2024. Eight have been at G1 level, all ridden by Buick including three in the USA and one in HK, and at the halfway point in the season it looks like there is genuine depth to the royal blue juvenile pool.

Aidan and Ryan

Gus was the villainous Hyde rather than the admirable Jekyll, the admirable Kyprios was commanding, Henry Longfellow was plain, Jan was gutsy, Opera Singer was pitch perfect and Dreamy delivered late.

That’s the short summary of a hectic spell for Ballydoyle but world-class riders make a crucial difference when the stakes are highest and Ryan’s rides on the immature JAN BRUEGHEL and the rejuvenated OPERA SINGER were nigh-on flawless.

Time will tell whether a narrow defeat of See The Fire provides a path towards Arc success for Opera Singer but there have been three G1s over 2000m in Britain this summer. The old firm have snagged them all with three different horses and City of Troy will be a short price to land the fourth on the Knavesmire next month.

Richard Hannon

Last Tuesday he was saying ROSALLION was “everything you could ever dream of” during a media visit and this Tuesday he was scratching his stable star from the Sussex Stakes due to a respiratory infection.

The Hannon glass is seldom half empty – and there is ample time for Rosallion to revive this season – but he heads into day four winless on the week and the prospect of a rare blank at one of his favourite Festivals is beginning to loom.

Mick Appleby

Let’s just say the facts speak volumes about one of the most potent pound-for-pound Festival raids in recent history.

The Rutland maestro sent just five horses to Sussex over the first three days and left with a 16/1 success for the revitalised KITAI, a 25/1 Molecomb score for BIG MOJO, a thrilling handicap win for the excellent SHAGRAAN and fine placed efforts from Mr Lightside and Billyjoh.

You won’t need reminding that Appleby sends his stable star BIG EVS back to the scene of last year’s Molecomb win in Friday’s King George Qatar Stakes.

Another win on the Downs would give his trainer an epic week by any standards – and if Magical Mick caps it all by winning Saturday’s Stewards’ Cup with Billyjoh then the Freedom of Sussex looks a mere formality.

Johnny Murtagh

Started on a high by saddling Take Heart to win the opener on day one but dipped alarmingly by telling ITV viewers that the Goodwood panel “bottled it” in demoting Jabaara for hampering Raqiya at a crucial point in the Oak Tree.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the British Rule Book would know this was a case that could have gone either way.

Jason Weaver made a balanced and persuasive case for the reversal but Johnny’s edgy, old school courtroom demeanour – founded on the idea that Crowley should have kept driving into a dangerously diminishing gap - generated way more heat than light.

Richard Hoiles

The ITV caller was right on the ball in flagging up the potential for an expulsion tool being brandished within seconds of the busy Oak Tree finish but his standout moment of the week came with a zinger of a reaction to seeing Poundshop PM Liz Truss parading in the paddock with Dr Jim Hay.

Up came the betting graphic for the Wednesday opener and, quick as a flash, Hoiles quipped: “This market could crash any minute, couldn’t it?”

Love that, Dickie. Love it.

Owen Burrows

Started on a low when the wretched Fair Wind refused to race on Tuesday but that that reverse was sandwiched between Alflaila’s second win in the G2 Sky Bet York Stakes and RAQIYA being awarded the Oak Tree by the Commissars.

The old ‘deserves more chances’ saying is often trotted out but here’s a bloke who has been striking at a rate of slightly better than one in four from a smallish string over the last three years with Hukum, Minzaal, Anmaat and Alyanaabi all flying the flag in high-class company.

Dylan Brown McMonagle

Has come a long way since that awkward day when Frankie gave him an undeserved verbal spray on Champions Day at Ascot a couple of years ago and landed his first major UK win by coming from well back to land Thursday’s Richmond Stakes for Michael O’Callaghan.

The 21-year-old had 22 entries in his RP ‘Big Race Wins’ file prior to this and all of them – including Al Riffa’s victory in the G1 National Stakes – had come for Joseph O’Brien.

But O’Callaghan is clearly a fan and many others will join the club in the next few years. Oh, and a word to Lanfranco. Baiting lads 30 years younger isn’t the greatest idea – especially when they’re former winners of the All-Ireland Boys Boxing Championship.

The Good Doctor

How’s your luck if the Irish heat helps send you out of the jumping kitchen and then you get chinned on the line on the Flat by an O’Brien newcomer by American Pharaoh out of the Yorkshire Oaks winner Tapestry?

Richard Newland and his Flat training partner Jamie Insole can console themselves with the fact that BOUVIER went down by fighting behind DREAMY in Thursday’s fillies’ maiden but, as the Doc would agree…….them’s the breaks.

The Robusto Cigar Stall

Vapers of all ages continue to emit billowing plumes of smoke like so many steam trains but the loss of John McCririck robbed the ring of its last great stogie fanatic and cigar chompers seem an endangered species on British racecourses nowadays.

Still, the good people at Goodwood’s Robusta stall insist that business has been decent. “We usually sell more than a hundred a day,” said a spokesperson. “But that tends to be more towards the end of the afternoon once people have had a few drinks.”

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