Qatar Goodwood Festival: Dave Nevison's top tips for day two

The rain came at Goodwood in no uncertain terms and that at least cleared up any doubts about the ground, but heavy conditions at these midsummer festivals is never going to make it easy for punters. My three fancies look to have more chance than some of handling the conditions.

The well-related Nagano has improved with each of his four runs so far and might be more than a handicapper in time.

He probably should have finished ahead of the re-opposing Siskany – the top-weight here - at Ascot last time but was badly hampered and stopped in his run one furlong from home. Nagano lost all momentum and didn’t have time to recover, but definitely looked one who would resume winning ways sooner rather than later.

That race was on firm ground, but he had previously scored in a decent race at Nottingham on good to soft ground and his sire Fastnet Rock gets plenty of soft-ground horses. I am pretty confident he will handle the testing conditions here.

She put up her best performance around this time last year when landing a Listed event when trained in Ireland, so conditions might just have come right for her.

Bounce The Blues has improved since joining Andrew Balding and looks poised to run a good race after her best effort of this season at Windsor last time.

In normal conditions at Glorious Goodwood I may have looked for a horse drawn a little lower to wing around this 7f track, but in this very soft ground and with most of the pace drawn high I am not too concerned Bounce The Blues is drawn badly in stall 10.

She will definitely be doing her best work in the closing stages and hopefully Oisin Murphy - who has been runner-up on her twice - can deliver her home first this time.

She posted a disappointing effort on heavy ground at the back-end of last season and that is concerning, but she finished runner-up on soft ground before that and has won on good-to-soft ground this term. On balance, I feel that she will handle these conditions and I’m happy to excuse that poor run given it was her final start of her debut season and she could easily have had enough.

Achelois certainly looks a stronger and improved filly this season, winning very nicely at Ascot last time and looking one to follow. She has a strong pedigree - one containing several soft-ground winners - and there definitely looks to be plenty of upside from a mark of 86.