NTF Badly Drawn Horse Notes: 2026 Glorious Goodwood Edition

Glorious Goodwood 2026 is now firmly locked and loaded in the form book…

… and safe to say the meeting was a favourites paradise this year!!

50% of the races were won by a horse sitting at the top of the betting…

38 races over the five days and 19 of them won by a fav or joint fav…

It was easily the most winning favs in at least the last 24-years…

I expect it to be, however, an outlier of a year rather than the new ‘normal’ for the meeting…

As always there were plenty ‘hard-luck’ stories and strong draw biases at play during the festival, which, although frustrating at the time, is always handy when it comes to picking out some Badly Drawn Horses to follow going forward…

My full Glorious Goodwood notes went out to members today and here’s one for your own notebook from that list…

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BADLY DRAWN HORSE

(Glorious Goodwood Edition)

 30th July – Goodwood

4:10 – Class 3 Buccellati Handicap over 5f (18 runners)

RIVER SPEY (E Walker)

Finished 7th | Drawn in stall 17 (Q4 of draw)

Low to middle was the place to be in this sprint, with the first 3 home all drawn in stall 7 or lower and the first 6 home all drawn in stall 13 or lower… historically, Q4 of the draw has struggled to land any serious blow in this race… prior to this renewal Q4 held stats of 0/63, 8p from the last 21 renewals, stats that now stand at 0/67, 8p…

Ed Walker’s 3yo had an extremely difficult task from Q4 of the draw and although he was 3.1L behind the winner come the line, it’s worth noting he was 3L+ ahead of the others who raced alongside him on the near side… it’s easy to think he would have finished closer to those ahead of him had he been dealt a more favourable draw…

This was the second race in a row where the draw has been unkind to him… he also had a tricky draw to overcome at Newmarket LTO, with his chances being compromised further by an awkward start…

He’s better than the bare finishing position suggest (this run and his Newmarket run), and he’s worth keeping on the radar for coming starts, especially with the following trainer stats in mind…

Ed Walker | 3yo’s in 5f-1m Hcps in July-Oct | C2-C5 | Straight tracks or F8 tracks | 1+ career wins | DSLR 45 or less = 45/165 | 27% S/R | +£77.23 – W&P 76/165 | 46% S/R – 39% above exp…

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The BDH horses posted here on the NTF blog are taken from the full Badly Drawn Horse Guides that NTF Members receive every week as part of their full NTF subscription… when any of the noted BDH Horses runs next I highlight them to members so they don’t miss out…

I source, fine-tune and highlight all the vital Badly Drawn Horses to follow each and every week… so NTF Members don’t have to!

If you are looking for somewhere to store the horses I highlight here on the free blog then I highly recommend giving one of the following two sites a spin…

>>GeeGeez Gold (Tracker part of free membership)

>>HorseRaceBase (Free 10-day trial for NTF readers)

I use both these sites on a daily basis and have done for many years 👌

Cheers – Ben (NTF)