The Qatar Goodwood Festival or ‘Glorious Goodwood’ gets underway this afternoon and there will be plenty of Sussex interest on the opening day.

It will be the first time in two years that racegoers have been able to attend the annual event with last year’s meeting being run behind closed doors.

Racing gets underway at 1:50pm with Unibet “You’re On” Chesterfield Cup Handicap.

The most fancied of the Sussex connections in the race the John and Thady Gosden horse Harrovian, who will be ridden by Frankie Dettori.

But Brighton-born jockey Ryan Moore will be hoping to cause an upset as he rides outside shot Ouzo, which is trained by Richard Hannon.

The next race sees Moore’s second ride of his five on the day, as he is on board the Aiden O’Brien trained The Acropolis in the Unibet Vintage Stakes, but he is rather unfancied at 6/1.

Moore’s next ride comes in the Unibet Lennox Stakes where he will ride another outside shot in five-year-old Happy Power.

The Gosden’s also have a ride in the Unibet Lennox Stakes as Dettori rides their outside shot Fundamental.

The main event of the day is the Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup where the Gosden’s stable star Stradivarius aims to win the two-mile Group One contest for a fifth consecutive year.

Despite the seven-year-old heads into the race having come up short in his bid to win a fourth Gold Cup last month, Stradivarius will be a hot favourite to get back on the winning trail on the Sussex Downs under Dettori.

But his owner Bjorn Nielsen expects his Goodwood rivals to try to make it difficult for the reigning champion, but believes his star stayer can to rise to the challenge once again.

He said: “Most of the time when you go racing as an owner you hope they run well, and you hope maybe they’ll win, but Stradivarius is that rarest of horse and it’s been the case since he won his first Gold Cup that you go there hoping he isn’t going to lose, so the feeling watching a race is the opposite to what it normally is.

“The way it is with him now is that he’s always the one they have to beat and they ride to beat him, so a lot of horses will be trying to make sure he doesn’t have a good run round.

“They are going to try to make it difficult for him and that’s what happened at Ascot. But if he’s out and about he’s going to win.”

Stradivarius was in line to go up against Subjectivist, who took his Gold Cup crown last month.

However, the Mark Johnston trained horse has been sidelined with injury.

Despite that Stradivarius will still face stiff competition from the likes of Trueshan, Spanish Mission and Moore’s ride Serpentine and Nielsen knows it will be difficult for his star to win the crown once again.

He said: “Stradivarius had worked very well before the Gold Cup and we were pretty confident he was going to run a huge race, but things just didn’t work out – no disrespect to Subjectivist, who was well trained, well ridden, and quickened up exactly as we were getting stopped.

“I was really looking forward to the rematch but we’ll never know now what might have happened.

“But Subjectivist wouldn’t have been that far ahead of us again turning in if he were here, I’m sure of that.

“There are still some very good horses there though, and any rain is going to suit Trueshan.

“We can’t underestimate Sir Ron Priestley either, who Mark Johnston has supplemented and is no slouch.

“You are always going to need some luck in running at Goodwood too – things have to go your way.”

Moore’s final ride of the day comes in the British Stallion Studs EBF Maiden Stakes as he is on board Monet’s Sunrise.

The two-year-old is having his first run of his career at ‘Glorious Goodwood’ and will be hoping to make a great start to his promising career.

Itv will be showing live coverage of the meeting.