Some cracking races for a bet tomorrow. DO, do you give Rumstar any chance in the barstewards Cup? Or have you given up on him?
I'll get back to you, Marb. I came on to post a link to Simon Rowland's sectional analysis of the first two days and his look back at the King George:
The Qatar Goodwood Festival has already produced some 'gloriously' fast times during the first two days, but Simon wonders if all is what it seems in part one of his analysis.
www.attheraces.com
For the KG, my own take is that ordinary G1 horses cannot run over 2.5s faster than standard on slow ground, regardless of what O'Brien says. Unfortunately there were only two races on the round course that day and the other was over only a mile. As far as I understand, the received wisdom is that if they go too fast early and don't really let up then the overall time ends up slow or very slow. Closing sectionals are saying the were very slow late, including the winner, yet apparently they broke the track record. I can't really buy that and it seems strange that the French miler also defied all logic last backend over the straight mile.
I suspect the sectional pars are flawed for some reason or other.
My own time ratings are pointing to faster ground on the round course than on the straight one, which is the opposite of the going stick. The going allowance works out to the pound with my figure for the 3yo winner of the G3 mile race so I'm happy with that allowance, at least pending further information. It may be that the correlation between the two times is no more than a coincidence and that both need to be marked down a bit. The 3yo filly had a 106% finish compared to Goliath's 98.4%.
Goliath still emerges with a rating to match his name and if he can be marked up a bit for a slowing finish then it will require a giant-killing performance to topple him going forward. It didn't look like it but I can't believe he didn't have a hard race. You just don't run to that kind of figure running within yourself. My suspicion is that Soumi realised they were stopping in front of him and that he didn't need to ask the horse to quicken in order to pass them, giving the impression that he was going easily but, for me, he couldn't have been.
Goliath is now possibly the best middle-distance horse on the planet unless Japan has something we're not hearing about. He can't run in the Arc so it will be interesting to see what route they take with him.
His superiority is clearly exaggerated, though, and should the beaten horses take him on again they can maybe hope to get a bit closer.
