Goodwood: Alcohol Free enjoys the soft going, upsets Poetic Flare in Sussex
Alcohol Free outfinished heavily favored Poetic Flare and won the Group 1 Sussex Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths on Wednesday at Goodwood Racecourse in England.
Alcohol Free, a 3-year-old filly getting 11 pounds from older male rivals and three pounds from 3-year-old Poetic Flare, appears to relish testing course conditions and got them Wednesday.
The Goodwood course was listed as “soft” – Kevin Manning, Poetic Flare’s jockey, described the course as “tacky, holding ground and there’s no bounce to it – and Poetic Flare, an easy winner of the Group 1 St. James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot last out, never looked comfortable on it. He pulled too hard in the early stages and visually struggled to produce a closing kick, still fighting hard, to no avail, when Alcohol Free came to him a furlong and a half from the finish of this important one-mile contest.
Alcohol Free had her own early problems in the Sussex. She and jockey Oisin Murphy were caught wide as Murphy tried to sort out tactics. Eventually, Murphy settled his mount with cover behind Tilsit, and when Alcohol Free was tipped outside and asked for run, she produced it, mowing down the favorite with a sustained bid.
Snow Lantern, who had to await racing room and was slow to find acceleration on the soft course, finished a well-beaten third. Duhail led the older-horse brigade with a decent fourth-place finish.
Over much firmer footing, Snow Lantern had won the Falmouth Stakes on July 9, Alcohol Free finishing third, but at Royal Ascot, racing over heavy ground, Alcohol Free won the Coronation Stakes by 1 1/2 lengths. Alcohol Free isn’t hapless on firmer going, and in 2020 she won the Group 1 Cheveley Park over a good course at Newmarket, but rain-sodden turf brings out her best.
Trained by Andrew Balding, Alcohol Free is by No Nay Never out of Plying, by Hard Spun, and there’s a chance she meets older males again in the Juddmonte International.
The Sussex is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race offering automatic fees-paid entry into the BC Mile and travel expenses to Del Mar. The 2020 BC Mile winner, Order of Australia, finished fifth in the Sussex.