Star stayer Trueshan expected to get Goodwood Cup go-ahead from Alan King

A dry forecast following the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Britain is not what connections of Trueshan were hoping for but as things stand, last year's winner is set to take his chance in Tuesday's Group 1 Goodwood Cup (3.35).

The going on the eve of the five-day meeting was described as good, good to firm in places, but with clerk of the course Ed Arkell reassuring Trueshan's trainer Alan King that any 'good to firm' places are few and far between King is hopeful of running his stable star.

"Speaking to Ed, he said you'd be pushed to find the good to firm so I'm pretty hopeful he will run," said the trainer. "We'll get there and have a look and see what the jockeys say, but if it's what he's calling it I think he'll run.

"Obviously if we got there and it went to good to firm, that would be a different ball game, but I've always said I'd be very happy to run him on good ground."

Alan King: looks set to let Trueshan take his chanceCredit: Edward Whitaker

Good to firm ground ruled Trueshan out of last month's Ascot Gold Cup but instead he put up a colossal weight-carrying performance to win the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle off an official handicap mark of 120 and carrying 10st 8lb, and King believes that performance has left him spot on for his Goodwood Cup defence.

"He'd been ready to run for some time and it allowed me to get that run into him and then leave him alone for ten days," said the trainer. "He just chilled out and went into his paddock and things have gone very smoothly since. He worked beautifully through last week."

The going was officially soft when Trueshan landed an impressive win in last year's Goodwood Cup, but King appears willing to let his six-year-old dual Group 1 winner take his chance on a likely quicker surface. He added: "Whether he's going to be as good on good ground, I don't know, but I'm happy to try."

'I would say we'll start on good, good to firm in places'

Having completed watering on Monday, Arkell confirmed the meeting is likely to start on ground described as good, good to firm in places, with the going expected to get quicker as the week progresses.

"The GoingStick reading was 7.5 this morning," said Arkell on Monday afternoon. "We've just finished putting some water on the straight, having replaced the moisture we've lost over the last two days, and had 0.2mm of drizzle about lunchtime.

"There would be at least two-thirds good [ground] and I would say that we'll start the meeting on good, good to firm in places."

Ed Arkell: 'The forecast is basically for a dry week'Credit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

Arkell is resigned to the fact watering will have to take place during the meeting, although the first application may well come after Wednesday's action.

He said: "The forecast is basically for a dry week. Depending on which forecast you follow, we might catch a passing shower but they'd be light. I should think the ground may dry back a little bit during the week and we'll see what we're losing moisture-wise during the days and make a decision each evening as to what we do.

"Forecasts suggest it will be around 22C/23C until Friday and then there's a suggestion it might warm up to 24C/25C."

For the first time at Goodwood's marquee festival, a false rail will be in place to create a cutaway two furlongs from the finish on the first two days of the meeting, which should alleviate trouble in running.

Arkell explained: "We've done it regularly at other meetings but we've never done it for Glorious Goodwood before, because we always ran the two-and-a-half-mile race on the Wednesday, which starts at the winning post, so you couldn't run them the wrong way down the straight and into a dead-end.

"That race moved to Friday last year and that has given us the opportunity to put a cutaway in, which works extremely well at all our other meetings when we run it, so we thought it would be appropriate to implement it for this meeting.

"It just means that at the two-furlong [marker] it opens up a bit and, if somebody is having a bit of trouble in running, seven yards' worth of ground opens up on their inside and hopefully that should help."

Executives at the track have also been delighted with the level of demand for tickets leading up the meeting, with advanced sales roughly mirroring pre-Covid pandemic levels.

Arkell added: "We're very pleased with advance sales and they are tracking pretty much as we had in 2019, which is really positive. There are still tickets available for all days for walk ups, but given the fact our advanced sales are as strong as we would have hoped and expected, that's obviously a positive sign [for the week]."

More on the Goodwood Cup:

'There's no pressure at all' - ice-cool Atzeni relishing Stradivarius Cup ride

2022 Goodwood Cup: Bjorn Nielsen on what could be Stradivarius's farewell

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