Glorious Finale At Goodwood

Andy Newton assesses the big sprint showdown

- Andy Newton

There are plenty of top-notch races to look forward to at the five-day Glorious Goodwood meeting at the end of the month (July 27-31), and one of those is the Stewards’ Cup.

Run over 6f and staged on the final day of the meeting, this handicap is always a well-contested betting event that the bookmakers love.

We can expect another big field of runners chasing the £46k first prize – while we often get horses that are in between Handicap and Listed company eyeing up the contest.

Twelve months ago, the David O’Meara-trained Summerghand was a gutsy head winner of the race under top-weight but having progressed well this season into Group company we’ll have to see if he gets into the race.

Let’s take a look at some of the main trends...

Trip – Being run over 6f, it’s no real shock that ALL of the last 18 winners had previously won over 6f before. This trend is unlikely to knock many horses out, but you might get the odd runner that is stepping up from 5f and yet to win over the Stewards’ Cup distance.

Age – In short, make horses aged 6 or younger your cut-off point. In the last 18 runnings we’ve had 17 horses aged between 3-6 years-old, while since 1978 the race has produced only two winners aged 7 or older (1995 and 2017). We can take this age stat a bit further by knowing 11 of the last 18 winners were aged 4 or 5, but it’s also worth noting that three of the last 6 winners were aged 3.