Red Jazz to Call the Tune
The third race on Glorious Goodwood’s Tuesday card is the Betfair Cup at 3.25 p.m., which is a Group Two event over seven furlongs. Barry Hills has his string in fine fettle at present, and he has every chance of landing this prize with Red Jazz. Red Jazz has been very consistent this year and made a winning reappearance at Newmarket back in April, when making all the running to beat Quadrille by three parts of a length.
He has been unfortunate not to follow up in four subsequent outings, finishing runner-up on three of those occasions. At Newmarket last time, he made most of the running in the Group Three Criterion Stakes at Newmarket, just failed to hold off the challenge of Premio Loco.
His previous run in the Jersey Stakes at Ascot’s Royal meeting was even better. Again sent to the front by jockey Michael Hills, he battled all the way to the line before losing out in a photo finish to the Mark Johnston-trained Rainfall.
Previous history of this race suggests that three-year-olds have an advantage here, having won the last three runnings and there are only two entrants of that generation set to go to post. Red Jazz is one of them and given his current form, he must have an outstanding chance of success.
Finjaan
The likely favourite for the race is Finjaan, who will be attempting to record back-to-back victories in this race. Trained by Marcus Tregoning, this son of Royal Applause put in a career best performance to land this race twelve months ago, beating Balthaazar’s Gift by half a length. However, his two efforts since that victory have been far from inspiring.
He finished off last season by finishing a well-beaten eighth to Regal Parade in the Betfred Sprint at Haydock. Connections suggested at the time that the rain-softened ground was against him that day, though analysis shows that progeny of Royal Applause often run particularly well on this kind of surface.
His only outing this year came back in March, where he contested a valuable Group Three event in Dubai. Although not disgraced, he failed to mount any sort of challenge and eventually came home in mid-division. On that evidence, he has to step up considerably to make an impact in this, although several work watchers have reported him to be working well on the gallops of late.
Air Chief Marshal wants to fly high
A more likely danger to Red Jazz could be the other three-year-old Air Chief Marshall, trained by Aidan O’Brien. The Master of Ballydoyle has had plenty of success at this meeting in the past and his representative here really seems to have found some form of late.
Having cruised to a 15-length success in an ordinary contest at Dundalk, he showed drastic improvement to win The Minstrel Stakes at The Curragh on his final outing. Leading at the halfway stage, he stayed on in good style to Duff by just under two lengths. It would be foolish to rule this one out as the yard are in very good form now.
Daighar drives on
French raiders have done very well this season and Dalghar comes over from the Alain De Royer-Dupre stable. He won a Group 3 at Longchamp on his penultimate start, and then contested the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot. He did quite well in the circumstances, finishing fifth to the brilliant mare Goldikova.
There are few horses capable of matching her ability, so to finish just five lengths behind is good in the context of this race, which represents a marked drop in class. If he can find a similar level of form, then he is sure to be in the shake up.
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