Whirl of a Day at Goodwood

Favourite wins Nassau amid bad weather and flight fright for a not-so-Glorious day

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GOODWOOD - Day 3 of one of the most famous UK race meetings was not without its fair share of high drama on and off the track on July 31, quite literally.

Thunder and lightning, and torrential rain struck at the third day of the not-so-Glorious Goodwood festival, turning the fillies' feature, the Group 1 Nassau Stakes (1,991m) into a slog through heavy ground.

The Aidan O'Brien-trained Whirl still made light of the atrocious conditions and an unorthodox flag start after the barrier stalls were deemed unsafe to use, to land the day's highlight in emphatic fashion.

But such gloom at the West Sussex track could have turned even darker if an earlier incident at 10,000 feet had not come to a happy ending.