Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup Stakes (G1)
The 3-year-olds don’t have a particularly good record in this race, with only Stradivarius (2017) managing to win it in his classic year. At this stage, there’s no reason to think that Scandinavia is certain to reach the same heights, but he is going the right way and has readily dispatched his stablemate Illinois to win his first Group 1. This was a relentless galloping performance from Aidan O’Brien’s son of Justify, who ran the fastest individual split in 5 of the last 7 furlongs to win by three-quarters of a length. A winning time of 3:27.96s made this the 3rd fastest winning time since Stradivarius, with only Kyprios going faster. However, a finishing speed of 11% suggests that this wasn’t the end-to-end gallop that we might have expected and as such, there is no obvious excuse to be made for Illinois, who enjoyed the run of the race in front under Ryan Moore.
I’ve included this pace chart in the analysis of this race as I think it’s important to highlight the gallop set by Illinois and the fact that Ryan Moore had the opportunity to control the pace and get the first run into the straight, with the benefit of the rail to help his cause. Although Scandinavia was the first to be asked for extra effort as they passed the 3-furlong pole, he continued to respond to Wayne Lordan’s urgings and he has taken 0.27s out of Illinois over the final 3-furlongs to get on top in the closing stages. At an average of 23.26 ft, Scandinavia had the longer stride of the pair and after reaching a peak average stride frequency of 2.55 per second, he simply had the better turn-of-foot in a race that developed into a sprint. There is clearly a need to highlight the fact that Illinois was dropping back from the extended trip in the Ascot Gold Cup and that he was having to concede a stone to his younger stablemate courtesy of the weight-for-age allowance. At the weights, there is no doubt that Illinois comes out best, but I don’t think that the connections of Trawlerman will be losing any sleep over this regardless and with the run of the race, there is still a slight air of disappointment about this effort. I think that it also important to note that his average stride length here was considerably shorter than the 23.93 ft that he averaged at Ascot at it may simply be that the unique test at Goodwood didn’t play to his strengths.
The slow early pace means that it seems best to put a line through the form of those in behind, who were given a lot to do when asked to make ground and quicken off a slow pace down the hill. Stradivarius didn’t win the St Leger after landing this as a 3-year-old in 2017, finishing 3rd behind Capri at Doncaster. Following this success, Scandinavia is now as short as even money for the final classic of the season in September. The last 3 renewals of that race have had finishing speeds of 104%, 101.5% and 106%, so he is less likely to get such a similar setup and his stamina is more likely to be required in the long Doncaster straight. However, he ran extremely well in the Bahrain Trophy at Newmarket (103% FS) and having finished so strongly on Tuesday, with a run-out speed of 36.78 mph (ranked 1st), there is every reason to think that the St Leger test will bring out further improvement.