Goodwood: Dubai-owned horses endured a quiet afternoon on Day 2 of this year’s Glorious Goodwood Festival, on a day when top-class hurdler Lil Rockerfeller proved an imperious winner of the opening handicap.
A seven-year-old son of Hard Spun, who has competed at Aintree and Cheltenham, came home a 15-length winner of the gruelling two-mile-and-four-furlong contest.
Ridden by champion jockey Silvestre De Sousa, Lil Rockerfeller made the running and cruised past the winning post a distance ahead of Altaayil with Imphal staying on for third.
It was a first-ever Goodwood winner for Wiltshire-based Neil King, who is best known as a trainer of jumpers.
“That’s terrific — fantastic,” said King. “I’m so thrilled with him. He’s been on the go a long time since finishing second at Sandown [over hurdles in late April], and I’m delighted we have pulled it off.
“It was a joy to watch. He’s such a good hurdler — he’ll be a better novice chaser this year. He’s hard and fit and ready to get to war when the races are there.
“He is set to go novice chasing in the autumn, but this is one of the few Flat races we can run him in because he failed a stalls test, and this race is started with a flag.
“It’s glorious to have a winner at Goodwood, and I’ve long admired the way my neighbour, Alan King, trains winners on the Flat and over jumps. We’ve had a bit of success on the Flat at a lesser level, and we had a third at Royal Ascot a few years ago [2012] with Nafaath, a 50/1 outsider in the Ascot Handicap.”
Later in the afternoon, Oisin Murphy delivered a fine effort aboard Lightning Spear to win the day’s feature, the Group 1 Sussex Stakes from Expert eye.
Meanwhile, Rumble Inthejungle was a comfortable winner of the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes under a confident Tom Queally, while the William Knight-trained Soto Sizzle toppled favourites Corgi and Making Miracles to win the Matchbook Handicap by a comfortable length.
Despite being bumped at the start, the two-year-old son of Bungle Inthejungle showed himself to be a star in the making when steadying himself to run a good race and win with quickening strides near the finish.
