FIVE days of Glorious Goodwood, not to mention seven days of Gruelling Galway, promises to be too much to squeeze into next week’s “Time Will Tell” so I have special dispensation to deal with the first day’s action of the former in this week’s column. The remainder will be carried over.

Goodwood’s Clerk of the Course came in for criticism for a significant amount of watering leading up to Tuesday’s curtain-raiser, but times show that the surface was still quite quick and would presumably have been lightning fast otherwise.

Dutch Connection had everything to suit him in the Qatar Lennox Stakes – a return to seven furlongs, a strong pace, a turning track, top-of-the-ground and rivals who fell short of top-class – and duly obliged under a well-judged ride by the impressive James McDonald.

rail movement

Dutch Connection did not break the long-standing course-and-distance record, but he was only 0.60s outside it and would just about have done so but for rail movement adding 12 yards to the advertised distance.

His timefigure was 110 – no more than respectable for a horse who ran a 116 on his reappearance – and he may need to be similarly well placed to follow up. Runner-up Home Of The Brave gets a 105, and third-placed Gifted Master, who did just a bit too much up front, is credited with just 99.

WAR DECREE

Decent though Dutch Connection’s time was, it says plenty for War Decree that he was little more than a second slower in winning the Qatar Vintage Stakes shortly before: the Aidan O’Brien-trained son of War Front is a two-year-old, while Dutch Connection is fully mature at four.

War Decree got well on top late on and ran to a 107 timefigure (I might have gone a few points more) which puts him fairly high up the rankings of juveniles in Britain and Ireland.

He looks sure to stay a mile and is about as good a Guineas prospect as the O’Brien stable has to these eyes (given that Caravaggio could prove to be a sprinter).

The opening race also saw a solid winning time performance in a well-run race from the stalwart Fire Fighting, who seems to have been around forever but is still only five. He dug in late to hold off Oasis Fantasy and ran a 111 timefigure.