Graeme North reviews the recent action from a timefigure perspective and he thinks Jan Brueghel has been underestimated in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe betting.
The news broke last week that the total prize fund for the 2026 running of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes is set to increase by £500,000 to £2,000,000, making what is already Ascot’s richest race Britain’s richest ever race.
According to Timeform ratings, there wasn’t a better 12-furlong race anywhere in the world last year than the 2024 renewal in which the 25/1 French raider Goliath got the better of subsequent Arc winner Bluestocking and subsequent Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Rebel’s Romance in a well strung-out field.
Disappointingly, only one three-year-old took part – Sunway, who’d finished second in the Irish Derby on his previous start and who later went on to finish third in the St Leger – and if nothing else hopefully the latest prize money boost might go some way to halt what seems an aversion to running top-class three-year-olds in the race.
The titanic clash between Grundy and Bustino in the ‘Race of the Century’ back in 1975, the former a dual Derby winner and the latter a Coronation Cup (and previous season’s St Leger) winner is the example all observers fall back on when attempting to define what the race represents but that was fifty years ago.
Sadly, Derby winners by and large avoid the race these days. Sure, Adayar did the double as recently as 2021, 20 years after Galileo managed the same (2001 was the last year the three-year-olds were the majority age group in the race) but three of the four other Derby winners to have tried this century have finished out with the washing. For the second time since 2020 and seventh time this century, there was no three-year-old representation this season but whether any of them would have coped with either of the two best older European horses around, Calandagan and Jan Brueghel, is a moot point anyway.
As it was, in something of a shambles of a race, Jan Brueghel didn’t give his running leaving Calandagan to reverse Coronation Cup placings as the sectional data that day suggested he had every right to do.
Indeed, if there was a horse who wasn’t putting it all in, as Calandagan was widely accused of at Epsom, it was surely not the supposed pacemaker Continuous, who actually travelled surprisingly strongly under hard restraint until early in the straight, but his stablemate Jan Brueghel who, sporting first-time cheekpieces, was sent to the front after a couple of furlongs but was the first off the bridle.
There’s no need for me much to add to the detailed pace analysis that my colleagues Ben Linfoot and Rory King provided in their independent race reviews in which they both questioned the wisdom of the sedate pace at which the race was run, but if I’m to differ on one point it’s that this wasn’t the performance Calandagan finally delivered on his promise – he’d done that every time since his King Edward VII demolition back in 2024 even when those runs were accompanied with a '2' in his form ledger and not a '1'.
Indeed, no older horse in training in Europe has had a more consistent regular package of top-class performances in their resume over the past year than he has. His defeat in the Juddmonte International last year can be attributed to his rider Mickael Barzalona coming too wide and from too far back in an ordinarily-run race, almost pulling what looked impossible off, and before his comprehensive Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud win last month there had been excuses despite high-class performances in the Champion Stakes and Dubai Sheema Classic besides the Coronation Cup.
Even before this latest King George win, his three-and-a-half length defeat of 2024 Arc runner-up Aventure suggested he’d be the one to beat if he was able to run in the Arc and the magnitude of his achievement at Ascot is shown by the fact the horse who followed him home in second, Kalpana, now heads the market for that race by some clear margin.
Calandagan’s bare timefigure was never going to be anything spectacular given the ordinary pace – it came in at 106 – but the detailed Total Performance Data figures for his final two furlongs suggest a 24lb upgrade is fully justified which would put him on 130 overall.
The other key takeaway from the King George with a view to profiting from it (hopefully) in the future was not the performance of Kalpana, who had every chance under a well-timed ride but ultimately was run down easily enough and looks too short in the revised Arc betting, or Rebel’s Romance who was hampered by Jan Brueghel but is pegged at around 125 on performance ratings anyway, but Jan Brueghel himself.
Possibly unsuited by making the running at the pace he did, the cheekpieces, the fastest ground he’d encountered since an insipid Gordon Stakes last year or even a combination of one or more of those things, there seemed no reason to me to push him out to 33/1 for the Arc which is the same price currently as his manifestly inferior stable-companions Trinity College and Camille Pissarro.
There’s no denying he’s almost every bit as good as Calandagan, even better if you take results at face value, is obviously only one of four horses to have beaten Calandagan over the past 12 months and was spoken of earlier this year by Aidan O’Brien as easily the best handicapped horse they’d ever prepared for the Melbourne Cup (“an absolute certainty”).
He might well be more a staying middle-distance type than a speedier sort but older ‘stayers’ have a good record (Gold Cup winner Order Of St George finished third and fourth in it) in the Arc when conditions are on the easy side which might be those which suit Jan Brueghel best.
It’s not as if Aidan O’Brien horses haven’t bounced back from poor one-off runs before and I can’t see any horse among the entries with better form than he has. Unless I’m missing something, even three months out, with a 126 timefigure in his pocket already this season I wouldn’t be laying him at any bigger than 7/1.
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The other ‘big’ four-year-old on show on Saturday was Almaqam who made his third appearance of the season in the Group 2 City Of York Stakes at York. Officially good to soft for Friday’s meeting but fast enough for Timeform to call it good, the ground had dried out, officially at least, to ‘Good, Good to Soft in places’ on Saturday but conditions judged on times were a fair bit faster (Timeform called in good to firm) and they once again looked totally unsuitable for Almaqam whose trainer Ed Walker was presumably misled by the official description having vowed not to run his star colt again on anything faster than good after the St James’s Palace Stakes last year.
Uneasy three furlongs out, Almaqam struggled to hold his position in a race that was well enough run from a mile out not to be messy, but to his credit kept on as Royal Champion, who’d been a neck behind him in the Gordon Richards Stakes earlier in the season when having the benefit of race fitness, quickened away for a ready victory in a 111 timefigure.
Almaqam can run much faster – he recorded 121 in the Brigadier Gerard when beating Ombudsman – but not on a surface this quick despite what his rider Kieran Shoemark (“no excuses”) reportedly opined afterwards.
Elsewhere, there weren’t too many timefigures last week worth getting excited about.
Listed Marwell Stakes winner Havana Anna was the only juvenile to beak the 100 barrier, posting a 102 at Naas as she blitzed a field that in all honesty hadn’t achieved much collectively beforehand and didn’t in the race either, while Fitzella fared best of the home-trained youngsters with a 95 in the Princess Margaret Stakes which is on the low side historically.
The two other Group races for juveniles last week, the Tyros Stakes and the Silver Flash Stakes, both at Leopardstown, went to North Coast and Composing respectively. Neither race was run at anything more than a steady gallop, North Coast eventually returning a 76 and Composing a 52, and neither was elevated either to the level of their performance ratings with Composing both coming in at 88 if sectionals from two furlongs out are used.
Exciting youngster Publish, who was an unfortunate loser when boxed in on his debut, posted a 91 when returned to Sandown to gain his maiden win, worth another 4lb from two out ridden by replacement rider James Doyle in such a fashion that getting boxed in wasn’t going to be on the agenda this time, and battling on well to beat Catullus without suggesting he really deserved anything like his promotion to third favourite for the 2026 2000 Guineas.
The Listed Star Stakes on the same card was won by Hope Queen in a faster time and slightly faster timefigure than Publish, but her upgrades were smaller resulting in an identical 95 overall rating.
The only other Group race last week open to three-year-olds and older, the Group 3 Valiant Stakes went to the improving Cheshire Dancer in a 101 timefigure, but better efforts on the clock were recorded by Cover Up (108) in the concluding five-furlong sprint at Ascot, even after an allowance for the surface speeding up had been made, and three-year-old Pinhole (107) who made short work of his older opponents in a mile and a half handicap at the same venue dropping significantly in class after runs this season in the Chester Vase and Queen’s Vase and a reminder once again that this is the time of year to have three-year-olds on your side in all-aged handicaps (especially the better ones) over middle or long distances.
Make Me King (105) in the Listed Pomfret Stakes at Pontefract and Solar Acclaim (102) in one of the Racing league handicaps were other winners last week to break into three figures.
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