Glorious Goodwood: day three

Main feature today at Goodwood today is the Group Two Goodwood Cup over 2 miles at 16.30 CET and this looks yet another top British prize destined to go to Aidan O´Brien, who runs Yeats (Johnny Murtagh) and Honolulu (Seamus Heffernan). Clearly Yeats is the stables number one followims hat-trick of successes in the Ascot Gold Cup; he also won this race very easily in 2006 and in fact has won 6 of his last 7 starts and despite his 5 lbs Group One penalty looks very hard to beat here.

If there is an upset, it is likely to be his stable-companion Honolulu, also a Royal Ascot winner his year,to spring it, as the home challengers, headed by Distinction (Sir Michael Stoute/ Ryan Moore) and Mad Rush (Luca Cumani/ Seb Sanders), who is stepping up in both class and distance, look well held on all known form. The card starts with a Group Three race for fillies over 1 3/4 miles at 15.15, in which Godolphin´s Folk Opera (Frankie Dettori) looks the form choice, but with the Godolphin horses currently not running up to expectations, one could perhapslook elsewhere, for example to Stoute´s Hi Calypso (Moore), who won this last year, or the 3yo Miracle Seeker (Clive Cox/ Philip Robinson), a half-sister to champion hurdler Katchit.

Another Godolphin runner Dandy Man (Dettori) looks likely to start favourite for the Group Three 5 furlongs race at 15.50, but there are several alternatives here, such as Desert Lord (Kevin Ryan/ Jamie Spencer), winner of the Abbaye on firm ground 2 years ago, last year´s winner Moorhouse Lad (Bryan Smart/ Moore), or the smart handicapper Masta Plasta (David and Adrian Nicholls), moving up into group company for the first time.

Betting forecast:
1.Race: Folk Opera - Hi Calypso - Arthur`S Girl
2.Race: Dandy Man - Masta Plasta - Fat Boy
3.Race: Yeats - Honolulu - Mad Rush
4.Race: Khateeb - Fifteen Love - Hawaass
5.Race: Adversity - House - Tawaash
6.Race: Sanvean - Midday - Brief Candle
7.Race: Elhamri - Rasaman - Toms Laughter