Day two of the Qatar Goodwood Festival brings the highlight of the week for milers: the Visit Qatar Sussex Stakes at 4:10, a Group 1 over a mile that reunites both of the Royal Ascot mile winners with the horses they beat. It is a genuinely fascinating renewal, and we get to it in full further down.
Before that, a reminder about our festival competition. To enter, all you need to do is submit at least one of your NAPs on a horse running at Goodwood across the five days, Tuesday to Saturday. Land the winners and you stay in the running all week. It is free to take part: pick your NAP on the racecards and you are in.
As always, the first race of the day is free for everybody, and it is a good one to start with, because we are taking on our own Top Rated horse.
1:50 Goodwood: we take on our own Top Rated with Hatteen
The 1:50, the Coral Rewards Shaker Handicap, is a 0-105 over 1m3f218y. Our Top Rated is Infraad (William Haggas, Tom Marquand), and we are going to oppose him with Hatteen (Andrew Balding, Oisin Murphy). Our ratings are the starting point of every argument we have, not the end of it, and this is a case where we think the form book tells a different story.
Start with what Hatteen has done. At Newbury in May he was beaten by Point Of Law, who has since finished fourth in a Group 2 at Royal Ascot and won again at Newmarket, and he finished in front of Glory Road, who went to Newcastle last weekend and won off a mark of 82. Then he was stepped up in trip at Doncaster and won going away off a mark of 82.
He has gone up only 6lb for that win, and we think the manner of it deserved more. Note who was behind him: Count Bezukhov, who was sent off at odds-on and beaten. That matters, because Cannes (Joseph Patrick O'Brien), prominent in this market, also has a win over Count Bezukhov to his name at Leopardstown. Both of them have beaten that horse, and here Cannes has to give Hatteen 7lb. We cannot see how he turns that around.
As for Infraad, we simply do not like his latest piece of form. At Chester he was sent off at 1.62, and could only finish third behind a winner returned at 19.00 and a runner up at 26.00. When a horse that short cannot pick up that pair, we take it as a warning rather than an excuse. And the pair have already met: at Nottingham in April, Hatteen finished second and Infraad, sent off the 2.10 favourite, was a place behind him in third.
The trip suits, the mark looks lenient, and he has already beaten our Top Rated once. Hatteen is our bet.