2025 Draw Bias: Qatar ‘Glorious’ Goodwood Festival

This week we enjoy the 2025 renewal of the prestigious Qatar 'Glorious' Goodwood Festival on the rolling Sussex Downs. To finish in front at a festival meeting contested on such a quintessentially quirky track requires more than traditional 'which is the best horse' form study. Preparations for those serious about the week begin with homework revision on the layout of the circuit and the implications on race shape.

Draw is rarely as simple - and occasionally not as complicated - as the pundits will tell you in their one line summaries, and run style remains an often overlooked component of the puzzle. Let's first review the course configuration. These are Goodwood's helter-skelter pistes:

If you're confused, you'll not be alone. There is a tight right-hand loop and a straight of a little shy of half a mile from which point the run in is pretty much all downhill - having been largely uphill to the turn.

Goodwood is normally a front-runner's track, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, when horses get to the turn into the straight, they tend to fan wide, some giving up ground just at the moment the pacemaking railers are stealing a length or two in their bid for glory. Secondly, horses held up for a later run can get trapped in a pocket with the far rail of the home straight cambering away from the grandstands. That said, a cutaway has been introduced more recently to try to offset those patiently ridden runner challenges, and this has made life fairer for all that the clearest passage is usually still in front or coming wide.

Clerk of the Course Edward Arkell reports,

"False rail will be in place on the Top and Bottom Bends and on the Straight to 2f leaving a cutaway for Tuesday and Wednesday. The cutaway will move back to 3.5f on Thursday. All remaining false rail will be removed for Friday and Saturday."

So that's the complicated layout of the track. Now what of the weather? The going is currently good after a mixed meteorological bag in the lead up the meeting; the forecast for later in the week is less clear cut, with a small amount of rain projected for Tuesday afternoon and a larger (5mm) amount possible on Thursday. Typically, these are bands of showers and so could produce significantly more - or almost none at all - depending on whether they tumble on the track or skirt it. ¿Comprende? Anyway, more helpfully, the latest going and weather station news can be found here.

We'll work on the basis of good or good to soft ground, but note that it may get a little wetter from Thursday onwards; obviously, check the forecast and the weather station link above as the days pass.

Goodwood 5f and 6f Draw / Run Style Bias

The five and six furlong races at Goodwood are run on a straight track and, being a right-handed track, the high numbers are closest to the near/stands' rail.

As regular readers will know, using the Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) metric can be a lot more instructive than simple win and place percentages, especially when the sample sizes are smallish. PRB gives a score to every runner in every race, with the exception of last placed finishers who beat 0% of their rivals. Here's how the PRB draw / run style draw chart looks for Goodwood straight track sprints on good or good to soft:

Goodwood 2025: 5f & 6f Draw Bias

It's pretty fair, though high draws have been at a small disadvantage as races often crystallise towards the middle of the track. The heat map underscores that statement: front-runners and, to a lesser degree, prominent racers have done well - and note that central seam of pale green implying a small benefit from a middle draw regardless of run style (except held up - this is not typically a sprint track for slow starters).

Goodwood 2025: 5f & 6f Run Style Bias

Goodwood 7f Draw / Run Style Bias

As we move onto the round course and races of seven furlongs or a mile, things get a little more clear cut. Let's start by looking at 7f handicaps on good or good to soft, 12+ runners. Here's the table showing wins, places and PRB amongst other things specifically for fast ground 7f handicaps since 2009:

Goodwood 2025: 7f Draw Bias

Low is strongly favoured and has won more races than middle and high combined, with high at a notable disadvantage regardless of your preferred metric. Breaking that down further, the PRB3* graph and draw/run style heat map are equally unambiguous:

*PRB3 takes the average percentage of rivals beaten of a stall and its immediate neighbours and is a sensible way of 'smoothing the curve' of draw charts

Goodwood 2025: 7f Run Style Bias

Low is definitely the best place to be, followed by a pace presser / forward goer from a middle or high draw (seemingly the only way to win from high).

Goodwood 1 Mile Draw / Run Style Bias

Looking at mile handicaps through the same field size/going prism reveals a more level playing field:

Goodwood 2025: 1m Draw Bias

There are not many races in the sample and the key takeaway is perhaps the torrid time front-runners have endured. Indeed, just one of the twelve horses to have led or shared the lead made the frame. Low and somewhat patiently ridden appears optimal; but luck in transit might be required!

Goodwood 2025: 1m Run Style Bias

The Golden Mile itself typically has a strong low draw bias - indeed, it's been one of the strongest draw bias races in the entire racing calendar, with just three winners exiting a stall higher than ten from the rail since 2009 when our database starts:

Goodwood 2025: Golden Mile Actual Draw Bias Stats

But... One of that trio of wide drawn winners was Johan in 2023, drawn 18 of 20, when the going was soft. And last year, on good to firm, the outside pair of stalls were first and second with the third placed finisher coming from five from the car park in a 16-runner field. Is this a paradigm shift? I doubt it, is my current answer. Last year, when there was no cutaway, horses on the inside got no run at all while the first three home got clear(ish, in the case of second placed Dutch Decoy) passage wider. All three podium finishers managed to get midfield sits a couple of horse widths off the rail after a quarter mile, where they might typically expect to be wider and/or further back from such draws.

Confidence in the claim that the Golden Mile is one of the strongest draw biases of the year is dented but not extinguished and I'll again be siding low with the cutaway in place. But I'm open-minded in terms of whether we've witnessed the fin de siecle on this particular Golden age of punting shortcuts.

Stay lucky!

Matt

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