Jim Crowley: I am very excited to ride Orazio in the Coral Stewards’ Cup
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Jockey and Coral ambassador Jim Crowley discusses the chances of his rides at Glorious Goodwood on Saturday and reflects on winning the Nassau Stakes on Al Husn on Thursday.
Al Husn reaction
I am delighted Al Husn was able to win the Group One Nassau Stakes on Thursday. She is a real top-class filly and she deserved to score at the highest level.
The race was always going to be tactical, and I knew the French filly was going to need a lot of luck from stall one. I was able to get Al Husn into a nice position and she was good enough to hold off all challengers in the closing stages of that race.
Saturday
He has won his last two races, with his latest success coming at Windsor where I was on board. He is a horse who only ever does enough, so despite having a 6lb penalty here, he still could have something up his sleeve.
I don’t think he will enjoy the ground being soft, but it is drying out all the time. I think he has a good chance of being in the mix here.
This horse ran up a bit of sequence last year. He was successful on the Flat on his latest appearance at Sandown over this 1m6f trip. He has been raised 9lb for that victory, but he was clear inside the closing stages.
Sweet William and Adjuvant are the two horses he will need to beat in this contest, but there is not much between them all. Gary Moore does very well at Goodwood. He had a nice winner there on Thursday and hopefully he can have more success with this gelding.
I am very excited to ride Orazio in this year’s Coral Stewards’ Cup, as the market suggests, he goes into the race with an excellent chance. He is a lightly raced horse that has been victorious twice this season. The ground was a little quick for him in the Wokingham last time out, but he did not run badly there.
I won the Stewards’ Cup in 2019 on board Khaadem (pictured below) who was the shortest-priced winner of this race in history. He was drawn low on that occasion, and here we have been drawn in stall six, which I am happy about. It would be fantastic to win this race twice for Charlie Hills.
This horse is making his debut on the track and although I know very little about him, any horse from Andrew Balding’s yard has to be respected. His horses have been running well all week and it would be no surprise if this colt made a pleasing debut.
Ian Williams’ runner has been declared to run on Friday in the Coral Golden Mile so I think it is unlikely that he will feature on consecutive days. If for whatever reason he does not run on Friday, I will be on board in this race. I’ve ridden him to victory on three occasions, and he is now back down to a mark he can be competitive from.
Jim
