Two To Avoid At The Goodwood And Galway Festivals

This week is a notable one for racing fans, with Glorious Goodwood and the Galway Festival both grabbing punters attention. From top-class Group races to ultra-competitive handicaps over obstacles, there is plenty of action to get stuck into.

Our Free Horse Racing Tips will provide you with the horses to back, but this article will produce some stats for those to avoid this week.

Avoid David O’Meara and Roger Varian trained sprinters at Glorious Goodwood

At the time of writing, David O’Meara and Roger Varian have trained 146 winners between them this season. In the past ten years, however, both have struggled with their runners in five and six-furlong handicaps at Glorious Goodwood.

O’Meara is 0-9 with his sprinters at the meeting, and none of those runners finished better than third.

Roger Varian also has an underwhelming record, with none of his six sprinters winning. Four of those were sent off at a single figure price – and two had outright favouritism – so even if the market speaks favourably this week, it could pay to look elsewhere.

Avoid claiming jockeys in the Galway Hurdle

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Galway Festival is the Galway Hurdle, which was won last year by subsequent dual Grade 1 winner Sharjah.

Since five-pound claimer Stephen Gray rode Galway specialist Bahrain Storm to victory back in 2009, however, this has not been a good race for claiming riders.

In the last nine years, conditional jockeys are 0-40 in the race – despite having the favourite in 2011 and single-figure-priced runners in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. It is also worth noting that the last seven renewals have been won by a jockey that had previously won a Grade 1.

Avoid Gordon Elliott trained handicap hurdlers at the Galway Festival

Gordon Elliott has won two of the last three Galway Plates, but he has not trained a winner of a handicap hurdle at the Galway Festival since Hoopy scored on the 28th June 2010.

He has had seventy-five runners since – including five favourites – but he is still yet to break his long losing run.

Avoid horses rated 101 or below in the Stewards’ Cup

The feature race on the final day of Glorious Goodwood is the Stewards’ Cup, which is seen as one of the most competitive sprint handicaps of the season.

In recent years though, the higher-rated horses have dominated, with seven of the last eight winners holding an official mark of 102 or higher – despite that only covering just over a third of the total runners.

Only thirteen entries currently fulfil that criteria and that list should be reduced once final declarations are made.

Be sure to take advantage of the bookmaker specials on offer for the Goodwood and Galway Festivals by visiting our Free Bets page.