Money can't buy you a lovely race

Money isn't everything, they say. It's true; it's just money. But there is an awful lot of it washing around in the upper echelons of British racing, and we'll be up to our knees in it at Glorious Goodwood next week.

Last year's Qatar sponsorship package involved an enormous increase in prize-money levels, which is always a good sentence to write down given the perpetual undercurrent of discussion about prize-money in British racing. There isn't really enough of it, is the gist, but there certainly will be next week. Whether it's in the right place is another thing altogether.

The Sussex Stakes - all races can be considered to have the Qatar prefix unless otherwise stated - is worth £1 million. It's the marquee event of the week, and as such merits the gravitas of all those greenbacks. Interest will centre on the rematch between the three Guineas winners, who came home 1-2-3 in the St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot. That race was worth less than £400,000.