What a great day one of Goodwood. The place has such a great feel to it from start to finish. And it’s so nice to be back, after living and working over here several years ago. Goodwood was always the festival I looked forward to the most.
While Royal Ascot is the pinnacle for a lot of people, for mine it feels like Goodwood is the industry’s week. It’s a lot more relaxed and the industry participants love it here. It seems like the real racing fans come to this festival and you can certainly feel that in the crowd, as the people here really know and follow the sport.
We kicked off the week with a lovely dinner with Gai and Rob Waterhouse, and Australian agent Chris Jory and his wife Sarah, on Monday evening, talking about the week ahead and how everyone came to be here at the festival following holidays and travel. We’ve also got some fun stuff lined up with Gai this week, so stayed tuned for that.
Dane Robinson
Myself and James Hetherington started the Tuesday off with a quick spin round the local golf course with Chris, who plays off a handicap of eight, so he made us both look more ordinary than usual. But despite the ordinary golf, it’s a quite a spectacular course and a great way to start the day and get amongst the festivities of the week.
What is hard not to like about Goodwood is it’s unique location in Chichester, up on the hill looking back down over the coastline, and the track itself which sits atop a working farm which seemed to blow James Hetherington’s mind being his first experience. The track is almost like a figure of nine, with uphill starts, the steep downhill decent, twist and turns; it’s so unique and so obviously different to the tight turning oval tracks we’re accustomed to in Australia.
Goodwood is such a different experience, not only for the horses but also for the spectators. Starting with the pre-race picnics in the car park thanks to great friend Martin Mitchell who hosted us and others such as trainer Charlie Fellowes, Chris Richardson of Cheveley Park, Jimmy George at Tattersalls, and James and Gai Eustace. No better way to start the day.
Goodwood Racecourse | Image courtesy of Goodwood
We settled into the day, thanks to Hermione FitzGerald (must get in touch with her if you ever want to attend this festival), between the QREC box and Owner’s and Trainers bar catching up with old mates and meeting a few new participants in the hope of getting them down to Australia.
The highlight of the day was the bumper crowd out and about to see Stradivarius aiming to win his fifth Goodwood Cup. He is obviously such a star for Goodwood and it was great to see how much the crowd got around him. When he loomed up on the inside in the straight, the roar of the crowd was something else. And despite going down by a short margin, they gave him a parade of honour in the ring after the race to celebrate the horse and what he’s done for the sport. He obviously means a lot to the people down here.
We finished the day watching the local charity cricket match between Lord Tavener's vs Goodwood Cricket at Goodwood Cricket Grounds just around the corner from the hotel where we’re staying, which rounded out the day ideally and sums up the week that is Goodwood.
Between the golf, the Goodwood Hotel, the motor circuit (later in the week), the cricket and of course the races, there is something for everyone here and it really feels like the whole community down here gets behind the festival and celebrations around it.
Bring on Day 2.
