Glorious Goodwood Antepost Tips Following Latest Scratchings

After the recent Goodwood scratchings, it’s well worth taking a look at the latest ante-post markets for the upcoming Qatar Goodwood Festival, more popularly referred to as “Glorious Goodwood”.

Ante-post betting on this fixture requires identifying horses that thrive on Goodwood’s unique, undulating, and sharp track, while weighing that up against trainer targeted races.

Our horse racing expert Steven Mullington takes a look at three of the key ante-post races at the Glorious Goodwood meeting, with a pick in each:

Goodwood Cup (Group 1)

Highly rated stayers coming out of the Royal Ascot Gold Cup more often than not dominate this market.

Aidan O’Brien is masterminding Scandinavia’s attempt to defend his Goodwood Cup crown in a few weeks’ time. The son of Justify defeated stablemate Illinois to take the illustrious prize twelve months ago.

Since that Group 1 victory, the four-year-old has added further Group 1 wins to his name in the shape of the oldest classic – the St Leger, and last time out in the Ascot Gold Cup.

Currently trading at odds of 11/10 in our ante-post horse racing betting market, I can Scandinavia trading even shorter on the day and I would recommend taking his price now.

King George Stakes (Group 2)

This five-furlong sprint is one of the fastest tests in the racing calendar due to the downhill nature of the track, so after successfully defending his title in the Coral Charge at Sandown Park under jockey Rob Hornby, Rumstar is the horse I want to be with in this blink and you’ll miss it sprint.

Despite a disappointing run at Royal Ascot, Rumstar’s bounce-back run at Sandown has given me full confidence in him again and I’m sure he will be a leading player at Goodwood.

Jonathan Portman’s gelding is also entered in York’s Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes next month and the yard expectations are high for him. Odds of 6/1 look generous at this juncture as I suspect a run of money on the day would see him go off at around 4/1.

Stewards’ Cup Handicap

With a maximum field of 28 lining up most seasons, the Stewards’ Cup is an extremely popular each-way betting heat with ante-post punters.

Many of them employ the strategy of trying to find “group horses hiding in a handicap”, which quite often plays handsome dividends.

Although he was never put in a Group race, Soldier’s Tree ran two top-notch races at Listed level and could quite easily held his own in a Group 3.

The five-year-old gelding finished a close third in the Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot and with the James Owen stable simmering along quite nicely this season, I’m of the view that odds of 10/1 in our sports betting look pretty appealing.

*Odds subject to change – prices accurate at the time of writing*