Day four of the Qatar Goodwood Festival. Here is how the card unfolded, race by race, with the results in full and the horses we are taking out of it.
Our day four preview is up if you want to see what we said beforehand.
1:50 Coral Goodwood Handicap: Defiantly wins it, and we have questions for the rest
The two and a half mile Coral Goodwood Handicap went to Defiantly (Joseph Patrick O'Brien, Dylan Browne McMonagle) at 11/4.
Some credit first. Dylan Browne McMonagle had Defiantly handy throughout and kicked for home a long way out, and nothing behind ever got near him. That is how you ride a staying handicap when the pace is soft.
Which brings us to the rest, and we are going to be blunt because this is a recurring theme this week. There were horses in this race conceding fifteen and twenty lengths to the leaders, in a race that was not being run at any great gallop up front, and their riders simply sat there and rode the tactic they had presumably been given regardless of what was actually happening in front of them. When the pace collapses to a crawl, somebody has to react. Nobody did.
This was not a race short of good jockeys either. James Doyle, Ryan Moore, Saffie Osborne and Oisin Murphy were all in it. The one who did react was Berkshire Sundance, who raced up in about fourth and stayed on into second at 28/1. Nothing came out of the pack behind him. That tells you everything about where this race was won and lost.
From our own point of view it was a mixed one. Alphonse Le Grande, the one we said could come from off the pace and finish with a rattle, did exactly that and ran into fourth at 10/1, which is a solid effort in the circumstances. Valiancy, our Top Rated and the one we thought could be very well handicapped, was well beaten in ninth at 3/1.