No excuses from Graffard after Calandagan misses out again
A brilliant winner of the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot last summer, the four-year-old went on to give Derby and Eclipse hero City Of Troy a run for his money in the Juddmonte International at York before suffering a narrow defeat behind Anmaat in Ascot's Champion Stakes.
Having picked up the silver medal for the third time in succession on his return to action in the Dubai Sheema Classic in late March, Calandagan was an 8-13 favourite to break his top-level duck on the Surrey Downs but again came off second-best, with Aidan O'Brien's Jan Brueghel keeping him at bay by half a length.
'I don't have any excuses. The horse had the perfect run; Mickael (Barzalona) gave him a ride with plenty of thought. Going down the hill he found himself behind Ryan (Moore, riding Jan Brueghel) and gave the horse plenty of time to balance himself,' said Graffard.
'He challenged him, probably took the lead for a moment and then just as they started to climb again, you could see that Ryan was finding more.
'He's a very talented horse who needs to win a Group One, but I'm sure he will. He always gives his best. I don't have any excuses. It was a good performance from him.'
Considering future plans, the French trainer added: 'He's in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, don't forget he ran in Dubai so hasn't run in France this year.
'Did I do enough at home? I think he was ready, but a tough O'Brien horse beat me, a horse who will keep finding more.'
Barzalona felt Calandagan did not help his cause at the start. He said: 'He's always slowly away, we cannot manage differently with him at the start, but once he found his rhythm I was behind Ryan at Tattenham Corner and I was pretty happy to be there.
'I think I hit the front 100 yards before the line and he kind of just stayed on and got a bit tired going uphill. The O'Brien horse was just a little bit stronger today.
'I hope one day we will be able to break a little bit faster and be able to get a better position earlier, but he has his own rhythm and we'll have to deal with that for the moment.
'He's getting more mature and it's the first time he's run over this kind of different track, so he ran well.'
Seven lengths further behind in third was Marco Botti's Hong Kong Vase hero Giavellotto.
'It was a good run, but they were a couple of proper horses in front of us,' said the Newmarket handler.
'My horse has run with credit, but Aidan said they would go hard and that's the way it turned out.'
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