Glorious Goodwood tips: Dave Nevison's best bets for day one

It is great to be arriving at the Qatar Goodwood Festival in decent form but I am under no illusions as to the difficulty of some of the handicaps at this meeting. Hopefully I will still have some of Saturday’s winnings left by the time of the Stewards Cup!

2.50 Goodwood: Eagle’s Way

The Johnston-trained runners are hard to overlook given the yard have won this race seven times since the turn of the century, but Sir Mark Prescott looks to have the potential blot on the handicap here in my view.

Eagle’s Way won four on the spin last season, beginning the run off a mark of 67 and winning the last of those just as easily rated 88 and looking very much as though there was even more to come. He waited until late July before reappearing this season and, though the winning run was broken, he was a very respectable second off this mark of 96.

Luke Morris has been on board for all of his wins and, from what may be an ideal draw in stall 7, should be able to hold a prominent position and avoid some of the inevitable trouble in running. We now know he goes on easy ground and there are few negatives in my book.

5.05 Goodwood: Espressoo

The expectation in this big-field race is that a host of front-runners will go off too fast and set the race up for the closers, yet that theory has often been blown out of the water by Johnston-trained runners who somehow keep on finding despite racing aggressively from the start and I am hoping that Espressoo may be another one.

She looks like an improving four-year-old and she drops back into handicap company after finishing second at Listed level last time. Joe Fanning has ridden her for all of her wins and will hopefully judge the pace perfectly from somewhere near the front and land another handicap for the yard.

5.35 Goodwood: Executive Decision

She ran her best races for Jessica Harrington on softer ground and gets those conditions for the first time since joining Jamie Osborne now, which may bring about the small amount of improvement needed to figure here.

Executive Decision was seemingly well thought of, having been tried in Listed company in Ireland, and while she may not be that good as of yet she looks to have been running herself into form in two runs over here. She ran fifth behind the prolific Quinault in a seriously competitive Newmarket race last time and will appreciate running against her own sex in calmers waters here. The handicapper has dropped her 1lb for each run which will make her task a little easier too.

Hopefully she can run well at decent odds in this lesser grade race.