Glorious Goodwood Festival Betting Offers & Free Bets 2024

The Qatar Goodwood Festival, or as most of us know it Glorious Goodwood, is another prestigious festival in the British horse racing flat season coming at the end of July each year. The five day festival originated in 1802 as an event for local army officers and over the years has gained a great heritage that makes it now renowned as one of the most exciting racing festivals in the world on one of the most majestic racecourses.

Coming at the height of the British summer and with the throughbreds peaking at the middle of the season, Glorious Goodwood always lives up to its name. The festival also comes at a time of year when not much else happens in the sporting world, this means Goodwood can capture the full attention of the bookies resulting in some of the best offers you will see all year on racing.

On this page we have the latest deals specific to the Goodwood Festival with information on the schedule, racecard, history and more further down.

Glorious Goodwood Betting Offers for 2024

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2024 Schedule and Racecards

In 2014 Qatar signed a 10-year sponsorship deal with Goodwood. This was the biggest deal of its type in the history of horse racing seeing over £2 million invested in the eight key races over the five days from the 23rd to 27th July.

Glorious Goodwood hosts three of the 36 Group One flat races in the season although it’s not so much the top class races that Goodwood is glorious for. The picturesque racecourse is seen as one of the most challenging and exciting for both horses and jockeys with complex bends and turns and a 6f straight.

Race cards for each day are shown below, for more about the feature races see our more detailed summaries further down this page.

Day One – Tuesday 23rd July

Day One eases you in nicely with a class 2 handicap over five furlongs on the “Craven Course” as the opening race of the festival. This is followed by the 6 furlong EBF Maiden Stakes handicap open to 2yo colts and geldings.  Next we have the longer 1m 2f handicap run, the Chesterfield Cup, which eases us in nicely before the group races.

The racing then gets into full swing with two back to back Group 2 races, the Vintage Stakes for 2-year-old juveniles (winner >£99k) and the Lennox Stakes (winner >£102k), named after the Duke of Lennox, for older 4 year olds. Both races are run over a mostly straight 7 furlongs, the first furlong is uphill and then the rest all downhill.

The next race of the day, the Goodwood Cup Stakes is a group 1 British Champions series race.  This two mile race is open to three-year-olds and commands a big prize fund of with over £284k for the winner.  This is one of the oldest races first run in 1808 over the longer distance of 3 miles. The race is the second leg of the Stayers triple crown following the Gold Cup and before the Doncaster Cup. Stradivarius has won the race an impressive four times on the bounce (2017-2020) ridden in 2019 and 2020 by Frankie Dettori who has won the race a record equalling 5 times.

The eight race card finishes with two races for fillies’, the first a mile run followed by a shorter 6f sprint, both for 3yo+ runners.

Day Two – Wednesday 24th July

The highlight of Day 2 is the second group one race of the festival, the Sussex Stakes, now regarded as the most anticipated race of the week. The race goes all the way back to 1878 and was originally run over 6 furlongs restricted to colts, now run over 1 mile for all 3-year-olds and older. The race carries a prize purse in the region of £1,000,000 with around £567,100 for the winner.  Frankel won this race twice in 2011 and 2012.

Day two begins with a middle distance race and large field class 2 handicap run over one mile and four furlongs.  Next up is the Oak Tree Stakes. This 7 furlong group 3 run for fillies and mares over three was first hosted in 1980 to commemorate the opening of a new grandstand for Queen Elizabeth II.  Another group 3 sprint for 2 year olds comes in third, the 5 furlong Molecomb Stakes.

Following the big race of the day the final three races of the day are all handicaps, the first is a 5 furlong class 2 handicap Fillies’ Conditions Stakes for fillies two years old.  This is followed by a longer Fillies’ race over one mile and one furlong for 3yo+ and then there is the final race another big field handicap over 7 furlongs.

Day Three – Thursday 25th July

Day three used to be a middling day until the Nassau Stakes group one race was move to the Thursday to jazz up the card.

The day starts with a gentle class 2 handicap for 3yo’s over 1 mile 2 furlongs followed by the first big race of the day with the group 2 Richmond Stakes, this £200k prize pool sprint over 6 furlongs is open to two-year-old colts and geldings. The race is named after the Duke of Richmond and was established in 1877.

Third up is the Gordon Stakes, a group 3 race for 3yo’s on the 1 mile 4 furlong “Gratwicke Course”.  It was moved from day 5 to day 3 for 2019.

Now it’s time for the group one Nassau Stakes. The race is named after the The House of Orange-Nassau, a royal Dutch house that goes back to times before William of Orange. This is also one of the oldest races at Goodwood dating back to 1840. The race distance is almost 1 mile and 2 furlongs and the prize fund is in excess of £600,000 with around £340k for the winner.

The day is finished off with four handicaps including two 7 furlong races for juveniles and sandwiched in the middle a longer 1m class 3 handicap for 3 year olds.  The day is finished with a 5 furlong sprint for 3-year-olds.

Day Four – Friday 26th July

By day four the festival is in full swing with an impressive four group races for spectators to enjoy in the sun. It begins with a long race and large field, the Goodwood Stakes class 2 handicap is run over the long “Cup Course”, 2 miles and 5 furlongs.

Next it’s the Thoroughbred Stakes, another group three 1-mile race that goes back to 1993, Frankie Dettori wont his on 5 occasions between 1995 and 2012.

Sandwiched in the middle of the group races is the Golden Mile, a one-mile class 2 heritage-handicap with the largest prize fund for a race of this type £150,000.

It’s back to the group two’s next with the race of the day, the King George Stakes, this 5f sprint is open to 3yo’s and carries a £300,000 purse with over £170,000 for the winner. The race was established in 1911 to commemorate the coronation of King George V. Lester Piggott is the leading jockey winning the race on 9 occasions on 8 different horses.

The final group three race, the Glorious Stakes, another middle distance 1 mile 4 furlong race on the Gratwicke Course for 4yo and older horses is up in fifth. The race goes back to 1979 with around £100,000 on offer.  This is followed by a 6f class 2 handicap for juveniles

The day ends with the only race of the week to be held over one mile and 3 furlongs, a class 3 handicap for 3-years+ horses.

Day Five – Saturday 27th July

The final day at Glorious Goodwood has lost the group one Nassau Stakes (to day 3) but that has done nothing to dampen the atmosphere, this is Goodwood after all, donkeys could run and they would still cheer.

The fifth day is a day of handicaps, and this is great for those punters looking to back a few outsiders each-way.  First up is the very quick Stewards’ Sprint over 6 furlongs, this acts as a consolation race for those that didn’t qualify for the Stewards’ Cup later on.

Race 2, the Summer Handicap, is also a handicap but this time over twice the distance, 1 mile and 6 furlongs, followed by the group 3 Lillie Langtry Stakes run on the 1m 6f course for 3yo+ fillies and mares. The race is fairly new, first run in 2003 and named after the actress. It was upgraded to a group 2 race for 2018 and offers around £170k for the winner.  The race was moved from day 3 to day 5 in 2019 to add a group race back to the final day.

The benefit of losing the Nassau Stakes from day 5 is it has promoted the much loved heritage handicap Stewards’ Cup to the race of the day.  This is open to all horses aged three or older and is now run over just 6 furlongs. The race name goes back to the 1830’s when the senior steward of the course would award a cup to the winner of any race they chose. This varied each year and was finally fixed by Lord George Bentinck in 1839 for one race over a mile and a half, this is where the 1m 6f Bentinck Course name comes from. The current race has a purse of £240k with around £129,000 to the winner.

The end of the festival sees three big field handicap races that gives punters a chance to place some nice each-way bets. The first two are class 2 races over 7f, one for 3yo and one for 2yo horses.  The festival finished with a class 3 1 mile 1 furlong race for four-year-olds and older.

Goodwood Feature Races

About the Qatar Goodwood Festival

Goodwood Racecourse

Goodwood racecourse is part of the Goodwood country estate around five miles from Chichester in West Sussex, England. The estate has been owned and run by the Duke of Richmond family since the 18th Century with the third Duke the founder of the course and festival. The landscape around the estate is renowned for its attractiveness, set against a Iron Age hill fort, and being fairly close to the sea the course is often bathed in mist and fog in the mornings.

The race course is quite unique and seen as quite challenge to younger horses in particular. The course consists of a 6 furlong straight, used for the Stewards Cup, that goes uphill to begin with for a furlong before descending for the remainder. The course then continues into a right-handed loop, at this point there are various starting points for races of other distances. Many of these distances are named after the people responsible for developing the course, such as the 1 mile 6 furlong Bentinck Course named after Lord Bentinck who established some of the first modifications in the 1830’s. As the loop continues there a series of sharp bends and undulations on the turf that create a challenging environment for the thoroughbreds.

History of Glorious Goodwood

Goodwood owes its existence to the Third Duke of Richmond, an illegitimate son of Charles II and his French mistress. The Duke was the colonel of the Sussex Militia who at the time held annual races hosted by the Earl of Egremont in Petworth Park. The Earl, an unpredictable character, withdrew the invitation in 1801 and in 1802 the Duke of Richmond stepped in by establishing a two-day race meeting on the Goodwood Estate. The Duke even had a winner on day one with his horse Cedar. The event was hugely popular and so the following year the Duke expanded the event to three days and under Jockey Club rules.

The Duke died in 1806 passing the estate on to the Fourth Duke, his nephew. It was at this time that the Goodwood Cup was established in 1812 and two years later the meeting was moved from May to the end of July where it has remained for over 200 years. This move proved highly popular and attendances grew, the timing was indeed perfect for the aristocracy to attend before retreating to their rural summer estates.

The Fifth Duke took over the estate in 1819 investing in the course including building a new 3000 people stand in 1830. With the assistance of the Lord George Bentinck the course and racing held at Goodwood was reformed with a number of firsts including setting off the race with a flag, pre-race horse parades, numbers on horses and the first racecards.

More prestigious races were subsequently founded, The Molecomb Stakes in 1833, the Stewards’ Cup and Nassau Stakes in 1840 and the Sussex Stakes in 1878. Over the years up to the middle of the 20th Century Goodwood steadily increased in popularity with many of these new races attaining permanent prestige. The meeting also became synonymous with the height of the British summer, commanding a jovial and raucous atmosphere less common at the more formal meetings such as Royal Ascot.

Following a suspension for the Second World War the festival returned and by 1953 was attracting 55,000 visitors for the opening day. Over the years Goodwood has incorporated other race events with meetings now from April through to the end of the flat season, including very popular evening racing. The course has been steadily improved with the number of group races, sponsorship and prize money all increasing to create the present day summer horse racing festival second only Royal Ascot.