Griffiths hopeful of a Glorious hat-trick

Take Cover, left, ridden by jockey David Allen, left, on the way to winning the Qatar King George Stakes during day four of The Qatar Goodwood Festival last July.

Though his 10-year-old stable star rolled back the years to win at York on his last outing, the big unknown is the stamina-sapping ground on the Sussex Downs following two days of heavy rain.

The one plus is that Take Cover, who likes to blaze a trail at the head of the field under Yorkshire jockey David Allan, invariably saves his best for Goodwood’s undulations.

Victorious in the 2014 and 2016 renewals of this five furlong dash, the Bawtry-trained horse was only beaten a head in 2015. He’s that consistent.

Take Cover ridden by David Allan wins the John Smith's City Wall Stakes at York last month.

“He worked on Monday and worked well. He’s come out of it in good form and he’s ready to go,” said Griffiths.

“I’m not worried about the draw as we’re near the favourite Battaash and I would imagine the rest will follow us.

“The one worry would obviously be the ground. He can handle soft, but he’s better on quick ground and in these races you want everything spot-on.

“Having said that, they’ve all got to go through it, our horse looks a million dollars and I think he goes there with a big chance.

Less than three weeks to the Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival at York (Picture: Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire)

“It would be great to complete the three-timer.”

The one to beat is Battaash. The Charlie Hills-trained three-year-old has burst on to the scene with impressive victories on his last two starts at Sandown but track conditions will be the worst the son of Dark Angel has experienced.

“We don’t know what the ground will be,” said Angus Gold, racing manager to Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum. “Obviously it was desperate on Wednesday. He’s had knee problems so you never know if they will go on this ground. It’s going to blunt his speed a bit, I would have thought.”

After Richard Fahey’s Ribchester suffered a luckless reverse in Wednesday’s Sussex Stakes – the winning time was the slowest since the Group One mile was opened up to older horses in 1959 – Aidan O’Brien’s Winter showed true guts to win yesterday’s feature Nassau Stakes.

It was the fourth successive Group One triumph for the dual Guineas winner, and Royal Ascot victor, who was stepping up to 10 furlongs for the first time – Ryan Moore’s mount defied the fast-finishing Blond Me under Oisin Murphy.

Moore said: “You wouldn’t say she was impressive by any means, but this ground is really as bad as you are going to get. She’s won four Group Ones on the spin and is a very professional racehorse. She knows how to race, and how to win.”

In any normal year, Winter would be champion filly – but her performances have, arguably, been eclipsed by John Gosden’s Enable after the English and Irish Oaks winner beat the colts to land last Saturday’s King George at Ascot.

Yet there’s every possibility Winter will take on the colts in York’s Juddmonte International later this month after defying pre-race doubts about possibly suspect stamina. “Ryan gave her a beautiful ride, he was very aware and held on to her and saved her as long as he could,” said the aforementioned O’Brien. “She’ll have a choice of York or Leopardstown (Irish Champion Stakes) but she looks like she’ll get a mile and a quarter well – if she got it on that ground she’ll get it well in any type of race.”