Timeform pick out the ratings banker, a big improver and a selection based on the Timeform Flags on day four of the Qatar Goodwood Festival.
FRIDAY
The ratings banker
Mogul – 16:10
Mogul’s last six runs have all come at the highest level so the drop to Group 3 company for the Glorious Stakes will be his easiest task for some time and, with no penalty to carry, he’s much the best of these on Timeform weight-adjusted ratings. He does, however, have to put a poor run behind him last time when he trailed home in the Coronation Cup at Epsom but the soft ground that day offers a ready excuse for that effort. Conditions have dried out at Goodwood since the start of the meeting and Aidan O’Brien clearly wouldn’t have declared Mogul if he’d been unhappy with underfoot conditions. Mogul’s three-year-old season sparked into life at this meeting last year when he won the Gordon Stakes (Subjectivist and Al Aasy among his victims) before he went on to win the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp and the Hong Kong Vase. He’s capable of high-class form but it might not take much more than a smart effort to win this.
The big improver
Baaeed – 14:25
Baaeed is one of the most exciting horses on show all week at Goodwood, though William Haggas is continuing the low-key approach which has enabled him to remain unbeaten in three starts so far as he’s gradually stepped up in grade. The Group 3 Thoroughbred Stakes is the next step on the ladder for him, therefore, after he’s sailed through a maiden at Leicester, and then a novice and a listed contest at Newmarket over the last couple of months. Baaeed looked a really good prospect on his debut and has very much confirmed that in his two starts at Newmarket. He improved again when landing the odds against some smart rivals with consummate ease in the Sir Henry Cecil Stakes last time, making headway on the bridle and then quickening clear to win by four lengths from Maximal who’d been beaten only a little further by Poetic Flare in the St James’s Palace Stakes the time before. With more improvement to come, Baaeed can take this on the way to bigger things.
The Timeform Flag
Battaash – 15:35
(Top rated, Horses for courses)
The King George Stakes is a race Battaash has made his own and he’ll be going for a record-equalling fifth win in the race – Further Flight is the only other horse to have won the same pattern race five years running. Returning to a track that suits his style of racing so well as he’s proved time and again, it’s no surprise, therefore, that he has the ‘Horses for courses’ flag. Although he won the King’s Stand Stakes last year, Ascot’s stiffer finish doesn’t suit Battaash so well and he was found wanting in the closing stages of the latest renewal of that contest, though can fairly easily be forgiven that defeat after making his effort earlier than ideal. It was also his first start of the year after he’d undergone surgery over the winter for a small fracture to a joint. Conditions won’t be anything like as quick as they were 12 months ago but it shouldn’t be forgotten that Battaash’s very first King George – and one of the very best efforts of his career – came on soft ground when he still managed to break the 60 second barrier.
