Poetic Flare has the edge in weak Sussex

The Sussex Stakes annually marks the conjoining of top older milers and rising 3-year-olds, but that will not be the case in Wednesday’s renewal of the Goodwood fixture.

Poetic Flare, the 3-year-old with plenty of flare to his game, is set to start in the one-mile Sussex but top older miler Palace Pier, unbeaten in three starts this season and an imperious winner of the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, was ruled out of the Sussex several days ago after blood tests suggested he was not at his best.

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That leaves Poetic Flare as an odds-on antepost favorite in the Sussex, contested over a unique twisting and undulating course that is not for every horse.

But Poetic Flare, bred and trained in Ireland by Jim Bolger and owned by his wife, Joan, already has handled nearly everything thrown at him this season, and Bolger has charted his charge a challenging course.

Poetic Flare comes into Wednesday’s contest with six starts as a 3-year-old, his lone sub-standard performance a head-scratching sixth-place finish in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains, the French 2000 Guineas. That race was contested on a very soft course, but Poetic Flare has run to form over ground with plenty of give, and just failed to muster his customary show of strength that afternoon at Longchamp. Otherwise, he has been an excellent 3-year-old miler. Poetic Flare, by Dawn Approach – whom Bolger also bred and trained – won the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and in the Irish 2000 Guineas was beaten a nose by his stablemate Mac Swiney. Back in action June 15 at Royal Ascot, Poetic Flare demonstrated the depth of his quality with a 4 1/2-length romp in the Group 1 St. James’s Palace over a turning mile.

Anything close to that performance level and the Sussex can fall in only one direction, and Poetic Flare, under the race’s weight-for-age conditions, gets eight pounds from his older rivals. The shortest prices among the older set as of Monday were on two Aidan O’Brien-trained runners, Order of Australia and Lope Y Fernandez. The former scored a massive upset last fall in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, while the latter was a troubled third in the same race, but neither could be called an actually elite older European miler.

Stronger challenges could come from a pair of 3-year-old fillies, Alcohol Free and Snow Lantern, to whom Poetic Flare concedes three pounds. Snow Lantern comes into the Sussex after a smart win in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes, a female-restricted straight-course mile at Newmarket where she beat 1000 Guineas winner Mother Earth, among some capable older foes. Alcohol Free finished third as the favorite in the same race after beating Snow Lantern on heavy ground in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The course condition at Goodwood as of Monday was termed soft. Post time for the Sussex is 10:35 a.m. Eastern. The race is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series, offering the winner automatic fees-paid entry into the BC Mile plus travel expenses to Del Mar.

◗ The admirable French gelding Skalleti won his second straight Group 1, posting a five-length blowout Sunday at Munich in the Grosser Dallmayr-Preis Bayerisches Zuchtrennen. The 1 1/4-mile specialist’s year-end goal is the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, a race in which he finished second last season.