Glorious Goodwood: final day with Nassau Stakes

The big Goodwood meeting ends today, with the Group One Nassau Stakes for fillies and mares over 10 furlongs at 16.15 CET the main event. This has been won for the past three years by Khalid Abdullah´s Midday, trained by Henry Cecil and ridden by Tom Queally; this team has had another great week here and are now represented by Timepiece, but with the best will in the world we cannot imagine that she is good enough to win this very strong renewal. Our idea of the winner is Zizi Top (John Gosden/ William Buick), from another team having an excellent season.She was third in the Oaks last year but is unbeaten since, and has finished well in front of several of today´s opponents. The only other older filly with a chance in our opinion is Nahrain (Roger Varian/ Neil Callan), who is actually top-rated as a result of her success in last year´s Prix de l´Opera, followed by a good second at the Breeders Cup. However she was well beaten on her only start this season and it is not clear to what form she can now run.
The two three-year-olds look very dangerous. The Fugue (Gosden/ Richard Hughes), owned by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, was third in the Oaks after not getting much of a run and ran another good race when runner-up at Royal Ascot. However on jockey bookings she looks the stable second string. She is in any case held on Oaks form by the winner of that race Was (Aidan O´ Brien/ Ryan Moore), who was then hampered when only fourth on terrible ground in the Irish Oaks. O´Brien´s three-year-olds are having a fantastic season and Was clearly looks the main threat to Zizi Top, even though this trip might be short of her best.