But for the tens of thousands who make the panama-wearing pilgrimage to the five-day garden party on the hill, there there is nowhere to match Goodwood at this time of year.

Alan Munro, who has extensive experience abroad, said: "For a rider, Goodwood can be a trap. It's a course where you need luck, more than anywhere else.

"Every race, over whatever distance, is unique, with a different pattern to it and no set formula."

It has been well documented that Munro, 39, has rebuilt his career after a selfimposed four-year absence.

Successful in the Far East before his sabbatical, he returned to the British fold last year and is on schedule to top his comeback season's winners tally. And even if he did not particularly miss tackling Goodwood's precipitous top bend while in foreign parts, the spotlight will be firmly on him this week as rider of Araafa, the favourite, in the meeting's feature, the Sussex Stakes.

Araafa, trained by Jeremy Noseda in Newmarket, is the colt that has brought back the Group 1 glory days that Munro enjoyed with Generous and other Paul Cole stars first time round. After finishing fourth in the 2,000 Guineas, the son of Mull Of Kintyre turned the tables on his Rowley Mile conqueror George Washington in the Irish version of the Classic and then produced a stunning performance to take the St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Since then, the three-yearold's homework has been of a high order and on Wednesday he tackles older horses for the first time in the first allaged pitstop on the elite European miling circuit. Victory would surely entitle him to slap the gauntlet down in front of George Washington, absent since his Curragh defeat but still rated the better of the pair. "Araafa is a proper horse, " said Munro.

"When I rode him in a racecourse gallop last week, it was as good as it gets."

But then good fortune has attended Munro lately. In the Goodwood Cup he will team up with his other favourite horse, the redoubtable Sergeant Cecil, whose trainer Rod Millman has supplied him with more winners than any other since his return.