Glorious Goodwood 2027 Dates and Day Guide

Glorious Goodwood 2027 runs from Tuesday 27 July to Saturday 31 July 2027. The Qatar Goodwood Festival, popularly known as Glorious Goodwood, is a five-day flat racing meeting at Goodwood Racecourse near Chichester, West Sussex. Every one of its five days is built around a single headline race. Goodwood designates all five as Premier Racedays, and its own festival page states the meeting carries at least 13 Group races, including three Group 1s, with the Visit Qatar Sussex Stakes named on that page as the £1.5 million feature.

Tuesday belongs to the Goodwood Cup, Wednesday to the Sussex Stakes, Thursday is Ladies' Day, Friday carries the King George Qatar Stakes and Saturday closes the week with the Stewards' Cup. Goodwood has not yet published a race-by-race programme for 2027, so that running order is the meeting's recent shape rather than a confirmed 2027 card. The full official name of the meeting is the Qatar Goodwood Festival presented by Visit Qatar.

When is Glorious Goodwood 2027?

Glorious Goodwood 2027 runs from Tuesday 27 July to Saturday 31 July 2027. Goodwood Racecourse publishes that range on its own Qatar Goodwood Festival page. The meeting keeps its Tuesday to Saturday shape, so the five days are Tuesday 27, Wednesday 28, Thursday 29, Friday 30 and Saturday 31 July 2027. The British Horseracing Authority, which publishes British racing's fixture list, has published its 2027 list.

What time do the races start and finish?

Goodwood publishes the same daily grid for every day of the 2027 festival. The gates open at 11:00, the first race is at 13:50, the bars close at 19:30 and the gates close at 20:00. The last race of the afternoon falls between 17:20 and 17:55 depending on the day. Goodwood attaches a note to those timings saying that all times are subject to confirmation.

Those timings shape the whole day if you are bringing a group. The gates open nearly three hours before the first race and stay open for two hours or more after the last one, so a full day at Goodwood is a five to seven hour commitment rather than an afternoon. It also decides when you can realistically travel home, which is set out in our guide to getting to Goodwood Racecourse and home again.

How many days is Glorious Goodwood?

Glorious Goodwood is five days long, Tuesday to Saturday. Goodwood designates all five days of the Qatar Goodwood Festival as Premier Racedays, so there is no quiet warm-up day at the front of the week and no wind-down at the end. Each day carries a different headline race, so the five days are not interchangeable.

Across the meeting Goodwood stages at least 13 Group races, including three Group 1s: the Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup on the Tuesday, the Visit Qatar Sussex Stakes on the Wednesday and the Qatar Nassau Stakes on the Thursday. Of those three, the Sussex Stakes is the one Goodwood's festival page singles out, describing it as the £1.5 million feature of the week. Goodwood attaches no year to that figure, and prize funds are declared afresh each season, so read it as what the racecourse publishes today rather than as a 2027 guarantee. More than 100,000 racegoers attend across the five days. That is the total for the meeting, not the crowd on any single afternoon.

What happens on each day of the festival?

Each day of the Qatar Goodwood Festival is named after its feature race. The pattern below is the one Goodwood published in its own day-by-day guide when this page was checked on 7 September 2026. Goodwood has not yet published a race-by-race programme for 2027, so read the day names as the meeting's recent shape rather than a confirmed 2027 card.

Which of the five days suits your guest list is one question, and how easily you can reach the course on that day is another. The Glorious Goodwood 2027 hospitality page answers the first. One thing the day you choose does not change is enclosure access: Goodwood states that the Richmond Enclosure, its premier enclosure, is only available to Members and their guests during the Qatar Goodwood Festival, on every one of the five days. What you wear is decided by the enclosure you are in rather than by the day you pick, and the rules per enclosure are set out in our guide to the Goodwood dress code and the three enclosures.

Which day is Ladies' Day?

Ladies' Day at Glorious Goodwood is the Thursday, the third day of the meeting, which puts it on 29 July in 2027. Goodwood places Ladies' Day on the Thursday on two of its own pages without attaching a year to it, so the weekday is the fixed part and the 2027 date follows from the published 27 to 31 July range.

The day opens with the Markel Magnolia Cup, a charity race run down Goodwood's home straight and described by Goodwood as the most prestigious charity race run in the UK. It is ridden by women who are not professional jockeys, and Goodwood names the Education Above All Foundation as its charity partner. The Group 1 Qatar Nassau Stakes, for fillies and mares, is the day's feature race, and Aidan O'Brien has trained the winner three years running.

Goodwood publishes no separate dress rule for Ladies' Day. It sets an enforced dress code in one enclosure only and states no hat requirement in any of them. Check the published rule for your enclosure before you plan an outfit around a hat.

Why is it called Glorious Goodwood?

Glorious Goodwood is a nickname rather than the meeting's official name. Goodwood's own history page says the press named it, and the racecourse uses the phrase itself, calling the festival popularly known as Glorious Goodwood. The official name is the Qatar Goodwood Festival presented by Visit Qatar. Both names describe the same five days at the same racecourse.

Racing at Goodwood opened in 1801 as a private meeting staged by the third Duke of Richmond for the officers of the Sussex Militia and members of the Goodwood Hunt. The first public meeting followed in 1802 and ran over three days, and Goodwood records that Rebel, owned by the Prince Regent who later became King George IV, beat the Duke of Richmond's Cedar for 100 guineas. King Edward VII later called the meeting a garden party with racing tacked on, a line Goodwood still quotes on its own pages.

Is Glorious Goodwood the same as the Goodwood Festival of Speed?

They are two different events staged by the same estate. Glorious Goodwood is flat horse racing at Goodwood Racecourse, which holds no jump fixtures. The Goodwood Festival of Speed is a motorsport event that began in 1993 and runs on a separate motor circuit, as do the Goodwood Revival and the Members' Meeting. Searching for one and landing on the other is easy, so check which Goodwood you mean before you plan around a date.

If it is the racing you want, the racecourse itself, its course, its enclosures and its year-round fixtures are covered on the Goodwood Racecourse page.

Who won at Goodwood in 2026?

The 2026 Qatar Goodwood Festival produced a repeat champion in the Goodwood Cup and a new winner in each of the other four features. Scandinavia won the Goodwood Cup, Bow Echo the Sussex Stakes, Diamond Necklace the Nassau Stakes, American Affair the King George Qatar Stakes and Evening Saigon the Stewards' Cup. Those are the form lines the meeting carries into 2027.

Goodwood Cup. Scandinavia won in 2026 for the second year running, having taken the race in 2025 as well, and goes into 2027 as the reigning champion. Kyprios won in 2024.

Sussex Stakes. Bow Echo won the 2026 running, with Gstaad second and Opera Ballo third. Qirat won in 2025.

Nassau Stakes. Diamond Necklace won in 2026, ridden by Ryan Moore and trained by Aidan O'Brien. It was the third Nassau in a row for that pairing, after Opera Singer in 2024 and Whirl in 2025.

King George Qatar Stakes. American Affair won in 2026, ridden by Paul Mulrennan for Jim Goldie. Jm Jungle won in 2025, ridden by Jason Hart for John and Sean Quinn.

Stewards' Cup. Evening Saigon won the 2026 running, ridden by James Doyle for Hamad Al Jehani.

When do tickets and hospitality go on sale?

Goodwood has published no on-sale date for the 2027 Qatar Goodwood Festival. Its own festival page and its horseracing landing page carried no 2027 on-sale window when both were checked on 7 September 2026. Goodwood Racecourse is the organiser of the meeting and sells its own admission, so any on-sale announcement will come from the racecourse first.

Hospitality is a separate question from admission, and it is the one most corporate groups are asking. What a hospitality day at the meeting involves, from the shape of the day through to what is not included, is set out on the Qatar Goodwood Festival hospitality page.

Last updated: 7 September 2026