Foreword The Qatar Goodwood Festival 2017 marked a special moment in our history with the Qatar Goodwood Cup being upgraded to a Group One race. In addition, the overall prize purse increased to over five million pounds across the five days of the Festival. We continued to work on our global promotion of the Festival and the enhancement of the customer experience on the ground, against a backdrop of fantastic racing. Our focus for this year was very much to grow our digital audience and the data results provided in this report show that this investment has paid off hugely while laying a strong foundation on which to build for the future. On Tuesday, the stage was set for a historic third victory in the Qatar Goodwood Cup for Big Orange but John Gosden and Stradivarius had other ideas and this three-year-old colt showed his prowess when winning by almost two lengths. Indeed, the first day sprung quite a few surprises with prices of 20/1, 50/1, 100/1 and 33/1 across the board and some very happy punters as a result. The weather was against us on the second day and the going changed quite rapidly from Good to Soft. The two-year-olds took centre stage in the Bombay Sapphire Molecomb Stakes (Group Three) with Havana Grey overcoming ground concerns to win with authority for trainer Karl Burke. The Qatar Sussex Stakes was next and produced a surprising but popular winner in the shape of Here Comes When as he beat the odds-on-favourite Ribchester by a neck. The third day was appropriately Ladies Day with the Markel Insurance Fillies’ Stakes (Group Three) and Qatar Nassau Stakes (Group One) the feature races of the day. Endless Time won the former in a scintillating finish for Team Godolphin. Later in the afternoon, Winter was bidding for her fourth Group One race in a row in the Nassau; this time the script played out with a picture-perfect ride from Ryan Moore bringing the Coolmore connections tally in this race to three in a row. The sun came out on Friday and Battaash hid the headlines with a truly authoritative victory in the Qatar King George Stakes (Group Two) for Charlie Hills, while on Saturday we finally saw Frankie’s flying dismount when he took the Qatar Stewards Cup aboard Lancelot du Lac. The Qatar Goodwood Festival 2017 was the setting for some of the most exciting racing in Europe this year. Thrilling sporting action on the course, watched by an increasingly international audience, demonstrates the growth and future potential of our partnership. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to working with you towards another wonderful festival of racing next year.
M ARKEL INSURAN C E O f f i c i a l P a r t n e r o f t he
QATAR GOODWOOD FESTIVAL 2 017
The Duke of Richmond and Gordon
Q A T A R G O O D WO O D F E S T I VA L M E E T I N G 2 0 1 7