27-07-2025
Calandagan Scores As Favorite In King George VI & Queen Elizabeth At Ascot
Calandagan Scores As Favorite In King George VI & Queen Elizabeth At Ascot originally appeared on Paulick Report.
Favored at 11-10, Calandagan powered home on Saturday to win the £1.5-million King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1) at Ascot Racecourse, earning a guaranteed start in the $5-million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1) via the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In.
Owned by the Aga Khan Studs SCEA, the Francis-Henri Graffard-trained gelding silenced doubters when he dug deep to beat Juddmonte's filly Kalpana by a length under Mickael Barzalona, giving his French trainer back-to-back wins in the 1 1/2-mile race.
The son of Gleneagles previously finished second in four consecutive Group 1 events – including crossing the line half a length behind Jan Brueghel in the Coronation Cup (G1) at Epsom – which raised questions about his resolution in a finish. However, he broke his top-level duck in the June 29 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (G1) last time out and doubled up with a first domestic success at the top level.
His win also marked a fourth success for the Aga Khan's green and red colors in the historic race on its 75th running.
French-based Graffard, who won the race with Goliath last year, became the first trainer to achieve back-to-back wins in the race since John Gosden's Enable won in 2019 and 2020. He joins only four other trainers – Gosden, Sir Michael Stoute, Saeed Bin Suroor and Aidan O'Brien – to achieve this feat.
'I'm so pleased for this horse,' said Graffard. 'It's a fantastic race. I was not expecting the tactics during the race. When I saw Continuous going very it was all different. When they turned to home my horse was still travelling well. He lengthened so well. He's a very good horse.
'I was very impatient when I saw Kalpana going away so well. I wanted to see my horse lengthening and getting into a rhythm, but when I saw him really coming, I started to shout and help him up to the line. He's won two Group 1s in a row now. M.B. (Barzalona) knows him very well and the ride he gave him gave me a lot of confidence.'
On the fact Calandagan has been gelded, he said: 'As a 2-year-old he was very difficult in the morning. We taught him to load with starters at Deauville for four days but we struggled to load him when it came to the race. He showed a lot of character during the race and he was beaten. We had no choice to geld him – I'd rather have a very good gelding than a bad colt.'
Calandagan was aided by the failed tactics of the Ballydoyle duo. Second choice Jan Brueghel – owned by Westerberg, Mrs. J Magnier, Derrick Smith, and Michael Tabor – did not follow the supposed pacemaker Continuous as expected, but instead made the running. Continuous ran on the son of Galileo's outside and never settled, while Jan Brueghel ran out of puff on the final straight. Those two finished last and second last.
Andrew Balding's 5-1 shot Kalpana ran a stormer of a race to finish second, a result which saw her into ante-post favoritisms for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1). After the race, several pundits questioned whether her jockey, Oisin Murphy, had gone too soon, while others thought she ran a blinder and the best horse won on the day. She has now been placed in three Group 1s this season.
Godolphin's Rebel's Romance was somewhat unlucky to get boxed in by both the Ballydoyle horses leaving his jockey, William Buick, with few options. The two-time winner of the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf ran on well to finish third, replicating his 2024 effort in the race.
The winning time was 2.29.79 on a course rated good.
The Breeders' Cup Challenge Series is an international series of 93 stakes races in 15 countries whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into a corresponding race at the Breeders' Cup World Championships, scheduled to be held Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Del Mar, California.
As part of the benefits of the Challenge Series, Breeders' Cup will pay the entry fees for the winner of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes to start in the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf. Breeders' Cup will also provide a travel allowance for all starters based outside of North America to compete in the World Championships. The Challenge winner must be nominated to the Breeders' Cup program by the pre-entry deadline of Oct. 20 in order to receive the rewards.
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jul 26, 2025, where it first appeared.
