ITV Racing Tips: Chil Chil could be the hot take in the Stewards’ Cup
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It’s past the halfway stage in the turf season as five days of racing at the ‘Glorious’ Goodwood meeting comes an end today.
The sun has not shone so much but the horses have, with Lady Bowthorpe, winner of the Nassau Stakes, and Alcohol Free in the Sussex Stakes providing the best highlights.
It will be the turn of another female star on Saturday when Wonderful Tonight, trained down the road in Pulborough, lines up in the Lillie Langtry Stakes, having missed last weekend’s King George.
She provides the quality, while the Stewards Cup supplies the quantity. A field of 28 will thunder down the hill for 6f dash and if that’s not enough there is a consolation Stewards Cup race, featuring another 28 runners.
They comprise a seven-race schedule to be shown live on ITV, of which two of the races come from Newmarket. It all unfolds from 13:10pm on ITV and we’ve previewed the three most significant races of the day in our ITV Racing Tips.
The consolation race for horses that didn’t make the cut for the Stewards’ Cup proper and it will be no easier a race to crack. A field of 28 will be spread across the course and we have no idea whether there will be a draw factor involved.
Three-year-olds First Folio, Royal Scimitar and Bickerstaffe are to the fore in the betting and man-of-the-moment Kieran Shoemark partners another leading fancy Power Over Me.
But a three-year-old has prevailed only once in the last ten years and there could be each-way value in an old local hope, the seven-year-old Orpen Wide.
Orpen Wide has contested the last three Stewards’ Cups, finishing second in 2019 to Khaadem, who was a Group horse in a handicap. He has not fared as well since and has come down the handicap as a result. He was unlucky on his latest start and with Saffie Osborne taking 5lb off, he will be 11lb lower than when he ran so well in the main race two years ago.
All eyes will be on Wonderful Tonight, the Group 1-winning filly who, like Orpen Wide, is trained in nearby Pulborough. She was heading to last weekend’s King George but she was pulled out when there was no rain.
Conditions are more suitable at Goodwood as will be the 1m6f trip over which she won the Prix de Royallieu last year. The Arc is her main target and having confirmed her wellbeing with victory at Royal Ascot, she will go off the hot favourite.
Albaflora could be a significant threat. She looks to be another soft ground specialist who won her opening race of the year by seven lengths. That was good enough for connections to supplement her for the Coronation Cup. That didn’t go to plan, nor the Hardwicke, but she was staying on well enough to suggest this longer trip could be to her liking.
Some of the key protagonists in the Wokingham Stakes have moved on from Royal Ascot to this prestigious sprint handicap.
Fresh, who finished second, and Chiefofchiefs, fourth, are bound to show up well again and last year’s winner Summerghand runs off the same mark from which he scored 12 months ago.
There are plenty of classy sprinters here where proven class may prevail. Chil Chil has taken significant strides this year, following up a Newmarket handicap win with a Group 3 success to earn a start in the July Cup.
That was a jump into the deep end but he acquitted himself really well and was running on at the finish when taking ninth place, only four lengths behind Starman. He has to shoulder top weight of 9st 10lb as a result but that should not be beyond him, especially as he represents a very much in form stable.
ITV Racing schedule, Saturday, 30th July
13:20 Goodwood – 7f handicap
13:55 Goodwood – Stewards’ Sprint
14:10 Newmarket – Nursery handicap
14:30 Goodwood – Summer Handicap
14:45 Newmarket – Chalice Stakes
15:05 Goodwood – Lillie Langtry Stakes
15:40 Goodwood – Stewards’ Cup
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
