I can land a winner for Charles & Camilla on Saturday – and why I don’t have much sympathy for jockeys in whip debacle

IT’S been yet another memorable week at Glorious Goodwood.

Overall we have to be pretty pleased with the week, we’ve had a couple of winners and a few near misses.

Alamy

Balding reckons King’s Lynn is a right good bet at Goodwood on Saturday[/caption]

Our star performer was probably Flora Of Bermuda, who absolutely bolted up on Wednesday.

We’ve always liked her and we will probably have a crack at the Group 2 Lowther Stakes with her at York in a couple of weeks time.

Even though it’s about an hour away in the car, it feels like you are going on holiday whenever you drive to Goodwood.

I stayed over in Chichester on Wednesday night and was out at the crack of dawn on the beautiful golf course on the estate.

Sadly, we were absolutely hopeless. I played with Mick Mariscotti, who is a long-time owner and good pal, and my middle son Toby who is a pretty good golfer, and he didn’t have the best day either.

I apologise to the green keepers, the course took an absolute hammering and we spent most of the morning peppering the trees along the fairways.

Hopefully Southampton’s season goes more smoothly than our round of golf.

We kick off against Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night, and obviously I’ve got high hopes that we will finish in the top two this year.

Mind you, there is still a lot of uncertainty about who is going to come and go before the end of the transfer window.

We can’t wait to get back to St Mary’s next week for the home opener against Norwich — I love this time of year.

So it’s a pity the debate about the whip has put a bit of a downer on things once again.

I know Jim Crowley said he lost count in the King George, but I don’t buy that you aren’t able to count to six, even in a tight finish.

I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for the jockeys when these big fines and bans are being handed out.

Jim is retained by Shadwell and he has delivered them a service, but the rules are there and you can’t complain if you break them.

It would have been absolutely horrendous if Hukum had got disqualified, so we dodged a bullet in that sense.

The jockeys have said ‘you don’t ask a tennis player to count shots in a rally or Lewis Hamilton to count the number of laps in his head’, but it’s not relevant.

I find it hard to believe that, had it been a £20,000 handicap, this would have happened — the jockeys have got to get it in their heads that they can’t push the envelope like this.

Back to the racing, as we hope to end the week at Goodwood on a high. We could even finish as top trainer at the meeting.

We run KING’S LYNN (3.35) for the King and Queen in the Stewards’ Cup under top weight.

They’ve already had a great week thanks to Desert Hero so we’d love to add to that in the Stewards’ Cup.

I’ve been dying to try King’s Lynn on a track like this and to see how he handles it.

He loves soft ground so the rain that is due to come overnight Friday into today will be right up his street.

I think he has a solid, live each-way chance.

NEW BUSINESS (4.10) is a horse we like, and he definitely has more ability than he has delivered on the track so far.

The ground is a bit of an unknown, but we have Ryan Moore booked which is always a big plus and if he handles the going I think he will take a lot of beating in this.

He’s lightly-raced and we have always had pretty high hopes.

CELTIC WARRIOR (4.45) is going to be a grand horse, but he is drawn wide on his debut which isn’t ideal.

ROYAL SUPREMACY is also having his first run in the same race. He goes nicely at home and he should handle the ground.

Though I can’t be sure SCEPTIC (5.20) will act on it, and he has a tough draw to overcome as well.

But he did win at the track two runs back and that was probably a career best. Though the handicapper didn’t miss it.

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