It was another very tough day at the coalface, with several non-runners taken out due to the going. As I got down to reading the form in support of today’s selections while sitting in a perilously rickety garden chair on a tilting lawn with only a gallon of Whispering Death to keep me refreshed, I was sidetracked by the words Trial and Jordan in a newsflash.
In brief, Katie Price, the model formerly known as Jordan, is undergoing a bankruptcy trial. There have always been girls who embarked on a similar career path to Katie, and many of them have also made similar lifestyle and enhancement decisions, which the rest of us might find bewildering. However, one fact we learned from the court report, and which gave rise to the teeniest bit of “Good for you gal” was that her novel, Crystal, outsold the entire Booker Prize shortlist when it was released in 2007!
Back at Goodwood, it got hotter and hotter, and the Duke told us we could remove our jackets. I was so taken aback that I half expected to see Dame Judy Dench walk past sporting her new Club colours. Instead, I tried to relax as I had a cup of tea and some Cucumber and Marmite sandwiches - the tea fare of choice.
I thought it best to leave early, as we were guests at the Park House Hotel long on hospitality, charm, decent food and drink, and, as I discovered this week, new potatoes - but that’s a different story. The knee popped again as I stood to gather the various tablets, phones, sunhats, brollies, etc. Jeepers, it hurt… so much so that the Hon and I mounted up and headed back to leafy Lambourn, where sitting around half-dressed covered in bags of frozen peas is permissible and no less rare than taking one’s jacket off in The Richmond Enclosure.
For a large chunk of the journey, the weather was biblical. It lashed down, and somewhere around Petersfield, there was a good 6” of standing water on the road that had not been there 20 minutes earlier. Not a drop fell at Goodwood, and overnight, I’m told their Clerk has put down 5mm to take the sting out. So, the going remains on the fast side of Good to Firm.
1:50 Coral Goodwood Hcap Cl2 (3yo+ 0-105) 2m4½f
Last year's winner, TEMPORIZE, is one of the bookies' concerns as he ran well at Royal Ascot and then won from the front at Newbury LTO. SUPER SUPERJACK was 2nd in this in 2022 and is 1lb less, so it should go close again. Hughie Morrison was overheard being very positive about PREMIER LIGNE, one of his three runners, who he thinks will get the trip. However, I fancy Kingy’s TRITONIC and Andrew Balding’s SPIRIT MIXER to give me some early fun.
TRITONIC 2 pts e/w - SPIRIT MIXER 2 pts e/w
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