Goodwood lifts Sussex Stakes purse to record £1.5 million

Goodwood has lifted the Visit Qatar Sussex Stakes to a record £1.5 million, turning the Wednesday feature at the Qatar Goodwood Festival into the richest mile race in Europe. The increase gives the Group 1 a sharper edge in the midsummer calendar, where the difference between a good prize and a huge one can decide whether Britain’s leading milers stay put or look elsewhere.

The race will anchor Sussex Stakes day on Wednesday 29 July 2026, inside a festival that runs from Tuesday 28 July to Saturday 1 August. Goodwood also reshaped the afternoon by moving the Qatar International Stakes, the Group 1 for purebred Arabians and the first leg of the Doha Triple Crown, to after the Sussex Stakes on Wednesday.

The new figure is the latest enhancement to Goodwood’s partnership with Visit Qatar after the first year of sponsorship began in 2025. Goodwood had already said the Sussex Stakes would be worth £1.2 million from 2026 before pushing the purse up again to £1.5 million, a jump that should keep the race high on the target list for the best milers in Britain and overseas.

The early entries already show the level of horse Goodwood is trying to hold. Bow Echo was among 32 names in the June entries release after winning the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket on 2 May and then beating Gstaad in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot on 16 June. Gstaad, who landed the Irish 2,000 Guineas at the Curragh on 23 May, gives the race another proven mile performer with top-level form from both sides of the Irish Sea.

The stakes are higher after a 2025 running that produced one of British racing’s great shocks. Qirat, the Juddmonte second string, won the Sussex Stakes at 150/1, with Rosallion behind him and Field Of Gold well beaten in a race worth £1 million. Goodwood first ran the Sussex Stakes in 1841 as a six-furlong contest for two-year-olds, and since its switch to a mile in 1878 it has become the race that most clearly defines the mile division at the height of summer.