The 2025 flat season continues with one of the premier festivals of the year, as Glorious Goodwood gets underway.
Sixteen Group Races – glazed by the running of three Group Ones – highlight the five-day event in which 37 races are scheduled to take place.
The third and final Group One race of the week is the Nassau Stakes, which will run on Thursday, July 31.
Day Three Showpiece
It is the showpiece of day three’s card, following the running of a Group Two and Group Three race.
A mile and one furlong between the starting gates and the shadows of the winning post is the distance that these fillies and mares will embark on, as they hope to take home a share of £600,000 in prize money.
This year’s renewal will see leading Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien go for back-to-back wins in the race, after taking victory with Opera Singer last year.
Give it a Whirl
According to the betting, Whirl represents his best chance at 11/8.
This filly won a Group Three race on her final start last year and has won two of her four races this term.
She reappeared with a sixth-placed effort at The Curragh, before winning York‘s (Group Three) Musidora Stakes and finishing second to star-stablemate Minnie Hauk in the Epsom Oaks.
Oaks Hat-Trick
Both she and Minne Hauk won their next starts, with the latter completing an Oaks hat-trick in the Irish Oaks and Whirl shedding her Group One maiden tag in the Pretty Polly Stakes.
It was a race in which O’Brien and jockey Ryan Moore made it 150 Group One winners as a partnership, with Whirl defeating favourite and subsequent King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes second Kalpana.
After the race, O’Brien said: “She’s a great filly, very special.
“She’s one of those unusual fillies, she doesn’t blow, typical marathon runner type, she’s the ultimate racing machine.
“I think it’s a race that we’ll remember for a long time.”
Race Representatives
She is one of two O’Brien representatives in the race with Bedtime Story completing the Ballydoyle duo.
Priced at 6/1, this filly enjoyed last season’s campaign in which she won her first four career starts.
Those wins included a Group Two and Group Three success, as well as the Chesham Stakes on her second start.
Her only two defeats came in her final two starts, both in Group One company – the latter of which came in France.
She will arrive here to make her first start outside of France since October, having been defeated in the French 1000 Guineas on her reappearance and finishing second on her latest start in a Group One, at Chantilly.
Sandwiched between the two Ballydoyle runners is clear second favourite See The Fire, priced at 7/4 to give trainer Andrew Balding his first win in the race.
The four-year-old was runner-up in this race last year and finished third to Ombudsman, in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, on her latest start.
It followed her only win in three starts this season, which came in a Group Three at York and was her first win since August when she won a similar race at the same track.
Smart Filly
Balding said: “She’s a beautifully-bred filly, by Sea The Stars, who won a Juddmonte International, out of Arabian Queen, who also won a Juddmonte International.
“She’s always looked a very smart filly.
“We thought she ran a super race at Ascot, against the boys, in the Prince of Wales’s.
“She’s had a little break since then with the view to preparing her for the Nassau again, and hopefully going one better than we did last year.
“It’s never easy at Group One level, but she’s going there in great shape.”
In the Running
Cercene is next in the market (6/1) and is sure to give her running having placed in all of her four runs this season.
She reappeared with a third in an Irish Group Three before going one better on her step up to Group Two company.
Both runs preceded two runs in Group One company, in which she finished third before winning the Coronation Cup on her latest start.
She was priced at 33/1 to win that race and beat French 1000 Guineas winning-favourite Zarigana.
The last of five runners in the market is Running Lion, at 25/1, who has a lot to do to win this race.
She boasts an inconsistent record, with her latest win coming in June last year in the (Group Two) Duke Of Cambridge Stakes.
Since then she has placed second twice – the first in a French Group One – and been heavily defeated three times across Group One and Group Two races.
By Callum Close
READ MORE: Glorious Goodwood 2025 – Dates, how to watch on TV, trainers and jockeys to watch
