Rachel Candelora's top tips for Wednesday: Profit from Beat The Bank

My Glorious Goodwood week started with a bit differently on Monday when I was lucky enough to play the picturesque Downs Course, on the Goodwood Estate, for the first time in the annual media golf competition.

I had a fun day but I think it is fair to say that a combination of the difficult course and gusty winds made for a testing round, but at least I didn’t finish last!

I am looking forward to going back to Goodwood at the end of the week to watch the racing on Friday and Saturday but more immediately the card on Wednesday has something for everyone - a marathon race, by Flat standards, the Sussex Stakes and its Arabian counterpart the Qatar International Stakes.

I believe that the Sussex Stakes is not the two-horse race that most bookmakers appear to think it is, with Beat The Bank a nice price in an open renewal.

This son of Paco Boy has won six of his ten career starts, including being an eye-catching winner of the Thoroughbred Stakes over course and distance at this Festival last season.

He got back to winning ways in the Summer Mile at Ascot and a little more give in the ground will suit him better than his more fancied rivals.

Andrew Balding and Jim Crowley combined to win this race 12 months ago with outsider Here Comes When and this year they have another very good chance to go in again.

Magnolia Springs returns to the scene of her best performance to date, having taken the Listed Height of Fashion Stakes over course and distance in May.

It is best to totally ignore her disappointing run in the Group Three Hoppings Fillies Stakes at Newcastle last time out. It was her first try on the all-weather, which she didn’t appear to handle that well, but more significantly the way races panned out at Newcastle over Plate weekend did not suit her hold-up/late kick style of racing.

As you might expect at this time of year three-year-olds have a good record in this race and now she tries handicap company for the first time.

A race most people will wrongly not pay attention to, but the bookmakers are still betting on it and if you do a little bit of research you are likely to know more than them!

The simple facts are this fourth running of the Group 1 Qatar International Stakes, with £400,000 guaranteed, is the fourth most valuable race of the Qatar Goodwood Festival and it sees the likes of Olivier Peslier and Christophe Soumillon coming over to the UK for their only rides of the day.

The fact that Peslier rode four Group winners (including all three Group One races) on the Dubai International Arabian race day card at Newbury on Sunday will probably guarantee that Tayf, last year’s winner of this race, goes off favourite.

He obviously is a major player again but the concern with him must be that Qatar-based trainer Alban de Mieulle hasn’t managed to get a prep race into him this year.

It looks highly significant that Muraaqib missed the meeting on Sunday in order to contest this race and this six-times Group One winner has to be on the short list.

The worry with Muraaqib is that he has not found that much off the bridle in his French prep races this season and now trainer Francois Rohaut tries him in blinkers for the first time.

I am going to side with last year’s runner-up Ebraz, who was beaten just a nose last year and will be much more at home on the ground this time and who should have a strong pace to fire at given his trainer Julian Smart runs pacemaker Aaley Al Magam.

Ebraz is one of the very best Arabian racehorses in the world (he won the Emir’s Sword, in Doha, in 2017) and he has the assistance in the saddle of Theo Bachelot who impressed greatly during the winter with his riding of often quirky Arabians in Qatar.

This Alan King trainee won easily here over course and distance on his turf debut last month and in his one turf try since Elysees was thrown into much tougher competition at Haydock.

He is taking a big grade drop today and returning to Sandown Park with Martin Harley back on board - who rode him to win here previously - makes him of plenty appeal.

All but one of his rivals are stepping up to this 1m6f trip for the first time and we know with Elysees that he stays this trip well.