Hugo Palmer: I can’t help but feel we’re overpriced

Top trainer and Coral ambassador Hugo Palmer discusses his Glorious Goodwood runner on Wednesday and gives us his thoughts on the Sussex Stakes.

Goodwood 3.00 – Hackman

This has very much been the plan all along for Hackman ever since he won at Chester. We were obviously extremely disappointed with his run in the Windsor Castle, and even though he was beaten a fair way by Kylian in the Dragon Stakes last time, one of the owners told me Hackman did actually touch odds-on in running that day.

On the face of it six lengths is a substantial distance to overturn, particularly over 5f, but I do think there are reasons to believe it could be a different story. Goodwood is a much sharper track than Sandown and it’s a very different test for these horses. I also noticed Kylian has never raced on anything slower than good, and he was actually withdrawn on debut on account of soft ground, so that could just be a question mark for him.

Hackman’s win came on soft ground at Chester, so conditions shouldn’t hold any problems for him, and I do think he’s better than he’s shown on his last few starts, so I can’t help but feel we’re overpriced at 25/1 at the time of writing. It’s not often you’d get excited about running a horse rated 87 in a Group 3, but I think there’s a variety of reasons why he might step forward, and I’m really looking forward to running him.

Sussex Stakes thoughts

I was a bit negative about this year’s three-year-olds on Saturday when talking about the King George, and I think that race on Saturday probably proved that Paddington is the best of that crop, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do here.