Horse Racing Tips: Sussex Stakes Ante-post Preview
The Goodwood Festival, affectionately known as ‘Glorious Goodwood’, is just around the corner, so it’s high time to run a rule over the feature race of the week, the Sussex Stakes.
Palace Pier, the highest-rated horse in Europe, according to Timeform, will miss this race but Poetic Flare sets ahigh standard. He is currently 8/11 to win the race but there is a strong card of challengers including Andrew Balding’s Alcohol Free and an Aidan O’Brien contingent including Order of Australia and Lope Y Fernandez.
Poetic Flare is as tough as teak
Poetic Flare has already had a busy season, winning the 2,000 Guineas and the St. James’s Palace Stakes and running creditably in defeat in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and the Irish 2,000 Guineas. Strictly speaking, he has 2¼ lengths to find with St. Mark’s Basilica on their running at Longchamp but, with the latter having done all his winning on rain-softened ground, connections must be optimistic about reversing the form. Poetic Flare was certainly impressive, visually, at Royal Ascot and a reproduction of that form could easily be good enough.
St. Mark’s Basilica to miss this one
St, Mark’s Basilica was the subject of lavish praise from trainer Aidan O’Brien after he had readily beaten Addeybb and Mishriff, by 3½ lengths and a neck, in the Coral-Eclipse. O’Brien stated that he would have ‘no problem going back to a mile’, but added that the International Stakes at York or the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown, or both, are ‘obvious targets’ for the Siyouni colt. That rather tempers confidence in St. Mark’s Basilica, from an ante-post perspective; his lack of fast ground form is a cause for concern in any case.
Alcohol Free can pay for the drinks
Beyond the market leaders, the filly Alcohol Free is proving admirably consistent and was only run down late on when third in the Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket earlier this month. She may lack the obvious star quality of a few of these but, in receipt of all the allowances, doesn’t have much to find with the best of them. A free-going sort, the fairly sharp mile at Goodwood should be to her liking and, at double-figure odds, she could be a ‘fly-in-the-ointment’ for some better fancied rivals.
A mouth-watering renewal of the race often billed as the ‘Duel on the Downs’ in prospect but, at the odds on offer, clear preference is for Alcohol Free, who doesn’t have as much to find with the principals as the betting suggests. Already a Group 1 winner over a mile, she still has scope for improvement after a total of just seven races and has yet to run a bad race.
Sussex Stakes 2021 Tip
Selection: Alcohol Free (10/1 with Bet365)
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