A date for your mare with Frankel will cost from £200K upwards and doesn’t even include dinner and a movie

Clear Quartz, ridden by Gavin Ryan wins Caulfield Industrial Handicap during day two of the Galway Races Summer Festival 2022 at Galway Racecourse in County Galway, Ireland. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire.

Galway

Bally ‘Brits Out’?

Today’s main event, The Galway Plate carries a prize fund of €270K and has attracted the maximum field of 22 runners.

It’s a niche race – a staying handicap chase over two mile six, generally on good ground, run at a strong clip in the height of summer with all jockey’s riding with their elbows out.

Despite these challenges, it is still disappointing that only a single British trainer has be tempted to have a crack at a lucrative prize. The Plate has only been exported twice in recent times, Philip Hobbs won with Amlah in 1998 and Paul Nicholls followed up with Oslott a decade later. The lonely traveller today is Excelerator Express, trained by Neil Mulholland. A true summer horse he came third in the Perth Gold Cup last time, following up on an April win at Aintree. A decent handicapper and probably worth an each-way tiddle at 25/1 or better.

Old dogs for the hard road

If Excelerator Express is to show at the finish then he is going to have to man up bravely against some tough old growlers who’ve spent plenty of time on the long road. The Mullins’ (Willie and Emmett) have multiple entries and Gordon Elliot and Henry DeBromhead also saddle several runners.

Despite this it may pay to look to one of our less prominent training establishments for the winner.

JJ ‘Shark’ Hanlon saddles Hewick who easily won the bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown in the spring proving, again, that it does indeed pay to across the Irish Sea. He’s been minded carefully for this, his only run since being a second place in a Ballinrobe handicap hurdle. This should have put him as right as rain for today.

Hewick is still only seven but is already a toughened veteran of 26 races and he stays all day. He will be landing late punches when others have long thrown in the towel.

Goodwood

Race of Champions

The Sussex Stakes (3.35) is the headline contest today atGoodwood.

While only time will tell if this afternoon’s renewal proves to be a classic in the longer term, the list of past winners reads like an honour roll of great champions, and includes Frankel, twice, Kingman, Rock of Gibraltar, Giant’s Causeway and Brigadier Gerrard among many others.

The race has also proved a strong indicator of future successful commercial breeding stock, most notably Kingman and Frankel in the last decade. These two stallions stand at Juddmonte Stud, an increasingly relevant powerhouse in the bloodstock industry.

Kingman, who won the race in 2014, stands at an exotic fee of £150k a cover. A son of Irish National Stud’s Invincible Spirit, Kingman has already sired multiple Group One winners and three of his offspring were successful at the recent Royal Ascot meeting.

His performance is overshadowed by Frankel. The greatest son of the greatest sire, Galileo, he has already sired 25 Group One winners including eight this season alone, including Westover, Nashwa and Homeless Songs. A date for your mare with Frankel will cost from £200K upwards and that doesn’t even include dinner and a movie.

Who will be second?

The interest and anticipation for today’s race has been shredded by the withdrawal of Coroebus on Monday who was found to have developed an abscess on a hind pastern.

Not a severe problem but enough to keep him at home for a few weeks longer. The intergenerational intrigue of the race is severely weakened by his absence as he looked the only opponent with the potential to trouble Baaeed.

The only questions now, and humdrum they are, is which of his remaining six opponents are likely to finish second to Baaeed (2/13) and how easily is he likely to beat them?

Alcohol Free (10/1) and Modern Games (16/1) look the two likeliest candidates to draw a sweat from the favourite.

Alcohol Free won this race last year, one of three Group One wins so far for Andrew Balding’s popular filly. Fast and versatile, she won the July Cup last time out over six-furlongs at Newmarket.

French Guineas winner Modern Games represents the three-year old generation but would certainly have been Godolphin’s second string if Coreobus had stayed sound.