Sometimes persistence is the better part of valor, and in his 16th try, the 7-year-old Lightning Spear finally won a Group 1 race.

Bursting between horses under Oisin Murphy on Wednesday at Goodwood, Lightning Spear rattled home a 1 1/2-length winner of the Sussex Stakes after finishing sixth in the 2016 Sussex and third last year. Lightning Spear, who began racing in 2013, has outlasted most of his contemporaries and on Wednesday outlasted seven rivals with a belated breakthrough at the top level.

Odds-on favorite Stradivarius wore down pace-setting Torcedor to win the Group 1 Goodwood Cup at Goodwood Racecourse in England. Stradivarius won the Goodwood Cup last year as a 3-year-old and on Tuesday scored his second straight long-distance win at the top level, having captured the Group 1 Gold Cup over 2 1/2 miles at Royal Ascot last month.

Stradivarius has rapidly ascended to the position of Europe’s best staying racehorse, and no one is expecting him to sink anytime soon.

Half the eight-horse field in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes on Wednesday at Goodwood is older horses, but if one of them wins it will cause a wholesale upset.

With You, fifth by a half-length in the French Oaks on June 17, won her debut against older fillies and mares in Sunday’s Group 1 Prix Rothschild at a mile on turf at Deauville, France.

Ridden by Aurelien Lemaitre, With You (8-5) stalked pacesetter Crown Walk to the final furlong before pulling away to win by three lengths.

Crown Walk, the winner of the Group 3 Prix Chloe for 3-year-old fillies at Deauville on July 9, held second, finishing a head in front of 7-2 Rosa Imperial, who was fifth against males in the Group 2 Godolphin Mile in Dubai on March 31.

They settled this year’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in house.

Crystal Ocean, trained by Michael Stoute, stalked a strong pace, easily made the lead with a little more than two of the race’s 12 furlongs remaining, and opened up under William Buick on the way, it appeared, to victory. But several paths closer to stands filled with a crescendoing crowd, there came Poet’s Word, trained by Stoute, cutting away at Crystal Ocean’s lead.

Fresh from a career-defining win in the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 20, Aljazzi will start favored in Sunday’s Group 1 Prix Rothschild for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Deauville, France.

The $349,620 Prix Rothschild is the first Group 1 of the Deauville summer meeting, which continues through Aug. 29.

Aljazzi, trained by Marco Botti, is one of three English shippers in a field of 11, along with the longshots Tribute Act (trained by James Fanshawe) and Tomyris (Roger Varian).

The three days of Glorious Goodwood, this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in England, get off to a grand start with Tuesday’s featured Goodwood Cup.

While there is squishiness in the European mile and middle-distance division, the stayers’ category is in robust health with Stradivarius at the top of the mountain and set to start as the strong favorite in the two-mile Goodwood Cup.

Poet’s Word broke through with his first major victory in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes last month at Royal Ascot. On Saturday, back at Ascot for the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Poet’s Word will try to cement his still-tenuous position as Europe’s top 1 1/2-mile horse.

The purse of the Dubai World Cup will rise to $12 million in 2019, up from the $10 million purse the race has offered since 2010.

The purse increase was announced Wednesday on the website of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and the most prominent force in Dubai racing.

The winner’s share of the World Cup purse is $7.2 million.

Total purse outlay for the World Cup card, the release on the website said, will increase to $35 million next year from $30 million.