Timeform Flat Awards 2025: The Champions

CHAMPION JUVENILE COLT: GEWAN (118)

Gewan’s two-year-old campaign for Andrew Balding followed closely that of his stable’s Chaldean three years earlier. His four races were the same ones that Chaldean had won in 2022, and while Gewan met with his only defeat in the Champagne Stakes, he bounced back to land the Dewhurst with marginally the best performance by a two-year-old colt in a season that lacked a standout juvenile (replay below). Gewan made a winning debut in a novice at Newbury in July, a race which Chaldean had won after being beaten first time out. Impressing again with how he travelled through the race, Gewan followed up in the Acomb Stakes at York, digging deep to see off the challenge of Ballydoyle colt Italy, but he didn’t go with the same zest when sent off at 6/5 in the Champagne, finishing only fourth of the five runners behind Italy’s stablemate Puerto Rico.

The Dewhurst Stakes, however, showed that the Champagne was merely a blip in Gewan’s record rather than an end to his classic hopes. More relaxed than in the preliminaries at Doncaster, Gewan got firmly back on track in the Dewhurst and never looked like getting caught once leading two furlongs out, going on to win by three quarters of a length from the Coventry Stakes winner Gstaad, with the Tattersalls Stakes winner Distant Storm third again, as he had been in the Acomb, and Zavateri, who had pipped Gstaad in the National Stakes, completing the frame. A strong son of the season’s champion sire Night of Thunder, Gewan will stay a mile and, with little reason to think he won’t train on, he’s a leading contender to emulate his sire, as well as Chaldean, at Newmarket in the spring.

CHAMPION JUVENILE FILLY: PRECISE (113p)

Aidan O’Brien monopolised the top races for two-year-old fillies in the autumn, with True Love winning the Cheveley Park Stakes and Diamond Necklace keeping her unbeaten record in the Prix Marcel Boussac, but it was Precise who had the best form of the trio, completing a four-timer with smart performances in the Moyglare Stud Stakes and Fillies’ Mile (replay below). O’Brien has won each of those Group 1s more times than anyone else, though Precise became only his second filly to win both races, emulating Minding ten years earlier.

Runner-up on her debut at Fairyhouse, Precise soon went one better in a maiden at Cork and improved again to become her trainer’s first winner of the Prestige Stakes at Goodwood. She wasn’t her stable’s first string in the Moyglare, however, with that honour going to the Debutante Stakes winner Composing, but unlike that filly Precise took another step forward, getting cover in a race run into a strong headwind and quickening to lead late on to beat her other stablemate Beautify by three quarters of a length. Suited by the extra furlong of the Fillies’ Mile, Precise just had to show similar form to follow up at Newmarket but was value for more than the three and a quarter lengths she had to spare over outsider Venetian Lace, asserting readily and winning with her ears pricked. An infection ruled Precise out of the Breeders’ Cup but she’s a good-topped daughter of Starspangledbanner out of a Galileo mare and open to further improvement at three.

CHAMPION SPRINTER: KA YING RISING (135)

Click here to read Ka Ying Rising’s Horse of The Year profile

CHAMPION MILER: FIELD OF GOLD (127)

Field of Gold’s development from a smart two-year-old into a high-class colt for Juddmonte in the first half of the year was enough to secure him champion miler honours. Trained by John and Thady Gosden, by winning his Guineas trial, finishing second when favourite for the 2000 Guineas and then winning both the Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, his classic season began in very similar fashion to that of his sire Kingman, trained by Gosden senior for Juddmonte’s late founder Khalid Abdullah.

A clear-cut success in the Craven Stakes made Field of Gold the Guineas favourite but despite making significant late ground, he couldn’t peg back Ruling Court who got first run on him and held on to win by half a length. That defeat proved costly for Field of Gold’s jockey Kieran Shoemark who lost his position as retained rider for the Gosden stable, but Field of Gold continued to thrive in his next two races, recording impressive wins under Juddmonte’s newly appointed rider Colin Keane in the Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes. He put up a career-best effort at Royal Ascot, producing a devastating turn of foot to beat the Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Henri Matisse by three and a half lengths with Ruling Court only third (replay below). The rest of Field of Gold’s campaign was an anti-climax, but he finished lame when fourth to his pacemaker Qirat in the Sussex Stakes, another race Kingman had won, and threatened only briefly when fifth behind another shock winner Cicero’s Gift in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. He’ll get the chance to put the record straight at four.

CHAMPION MIDDLE-DISTANCE PERFORMER: CALANDAGAN (133)

After a globe-trotting campaign which saw him become the highest-rated horse in Europe, it’s hard to believe French gelding Calandagan had his doubters earlier in the year. A half-length defeat to Jan Brueghel in the Coronation Cup added to a sequence of second places which had begun with his chasing home Timeform’s 2024 Horse of The Year City of Troy in the Juddmonte International the previous summer. But Calandagan didn’t look back after an authoritative first Group 1 win in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and, with the Ballydoyle tactics backfiring, Calandagan turned the Coronation Cup form round with Jan Brueghel in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes where Kalpana and Rebel’s Romance chased him home.

Calandagan returned better still in the autumn and went one better under much firmer conditions than the year before to win the Champion Stakes back at Ascot. Seeing off the challenge of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Juddmonte International winner Ombudsman, Calandagan stayed on well to win by two and a quarter lengths, becoming the first since the great Brigadier Gerard in 1972 to win the King George and Champion Stakes in the same year. Calandagan ended the year with another historically significant victory, becoming the first overseas winner of the Japan Cup for twenty years when gamely getting the better of three-year-old Masquerade Ball in record time, capping an outstanding year for his trainer Francois-Henri Graffard in the colours of the Aga Khan who had died in February.

CHAMPION STAYER: TRAWLERMAN (127)

At the age of seven, gelding Trawlerman established himself as the new dominant stayer, winning all four of his races in Britain after beginning his campaign for the third year running in Dubai. The retirement of his contemporary and old rival Kyprios before the latter was able to bid for a third Gold Cup undoubtedly made life easier for Trawlerman in 2025, but that’s not say he earned his champion stayer title by default as he proved just about better than ever.

Back in Britain, Trawlerman faced a straightforward task in the Henry II Stakes before heading for the Gold Cup again in which he had made Kyprios fight for his length win twelve months earlier. The previous season’s St Leger runner-up Illinois did duty for Ballydoyle instead, but under a no-nonsense ride from William Buick which made full use of his cast-iron stamina, Trawlerman kept up a relentless gallop from the front to leave his main market rival toiling seven lengths back in second with the remainder returning at wide intervals (replay below).

John and Thady Gosden had the first two in the Lonsdale Cup at York where Trawlerman ground out a length and a quarter victory conceding 3 lb to stablemate Sweet William and the same pair formed the one-two again in the Long Distance Cup at Ascot on Champions Day. Despite the race’s promotion to Group 1 level, it proved a thin renewal and Trawlerman didn’t need to be at his best to win the race for the second time, having got the better of a below-par Kyprios two years earlier after the latter had missed much of 2023 with injury.

CHAMPION FILLY/MARE: MINNIE HAUK (127)

Minnie Hauk was a worthy champion among the latest classic crop of middle-distance fillies. Off the mark at the second attempt in a maiden at Leopardstown at two, Minnie Hauk got her three-year-old campaign off to a winning start in the Cheshire Oaks where the longer trip clearly suited her even if the form was nothing out of the ordinary, certainly compared with the 1000 Guineas winner Desert Flower who started a short-priced favourite when they met in the Oaks.

But while Desert Flower underperformed at Epsom, Minnie Hauk took a sizeable step forward and gamely got the better of stablemate and front runner Whirl by a neck to become Aidan O’Brien’s eleventh Oaks winner. Whirl, a Group 1 winner in her own right in her next two starts, proved much the best of Minnie Hauk’s opponents among the other three-year-old fillies she met during the year. Minnie Hauk faced a poor field by classic standards in the Irish Oaks and had just three rivals to beat in the Yorkshire Oaks. The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, for which Minnie Hauk was supplemented, was therefore a very different matter but with Christophe Soumillon substituting for the injured Ryan Moore, Minnie Hauk ran a cracker, pulling clear of all bar top-class three-year-old colt Daryz who collared her late for a head win. Things didn’t go Minnie Hauk’s way when sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, but she gets the chance to confirm her Arc effort at four.

RACE OF THE YEAR: CHAMPION STAKES (129)

The leading races of the year are judged on the average of the first three home based on their Timeform master rating. On that metric, it was the Champion Stakes which came out as the year’s best race, being only the third time in ten years that a European Group 1 had brought together three horses with prior ratings of 129 or higher. On unseasonably good to firm ground, the Champion Stakes was a much more satisfactory race than some other contests involving pacemakers earlier in the season, and with the first two in the betting, both top-class four-year-olds, taking the first two places, the result made a lot more sense than some of the others on a Champions Day card full of shocks.

Ombudsman (rated 130) shaded favouritism and ran close to the form he had shown when beating the previous season’s Champion Stakes winner Anmaat in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes over course and distance at Royal Ascot, but as noted above he found the year’s Champion Middle-Distance Performer Calandagan (133) too strong in the closing stages after both had come from the rear of the field. The Champion Stakes’ average rating would have been higher still if Irish Champion Stakes winner Delacroix (129) had got the verdict for third, but he was beaten in a bob of heads for that spot with Almaqam (124+) who made it a one-two-three for the four-year-olds.

LEADING FIRST-SEASON SIRE: ST MARK’S BASILICA

St Mark’s Basilica finished third to Starman in the first-season sire table by prize money and was second to him by number of wins in Britain and Ireland in 2025 with 26, which was half the total racked up by Starman who had easily the largest crop of two-year-olds running for him among the year’s first-season sires. Timeform’s leading first-season sire, however, is determined by the average rating of his ten best two-year-olds to have run in Britain and Ireland, with St Mark’s Basilica pipping Starman on that basis with a score of 100.2.

Like 2024 leading first-season sire Pinatubo, St Mark’s Basilica was the champion two-year-old of his year, he too ending that season with victory in the Dewhurst Stakes. He improved into a top-class colt at three when successful in all four of his starts, winning both the colts’ classics in France before further wins in the Eclipse and Irish Champion Stakes. He was the most expensive stallion to retire to stud in 2022, when standing at Coolmore for €65,000.

The pick of St Mark’s Basilica’s first crop was the Ballydoyle filly Diamond Necklace (rated 109p) who had also been her sire’s most expensive first-crop yearling when selling at Deauville for €1.7m. She was unbeaten in three starts and looks a leading classic contender after showing an impressive turn of foot to land the Prix Marcel Boussac. The Ed Dunlop-trained Pathein headed St Mark’s Basilica’s colts, improving from a successful debut in a Doncaster maiden to finish fifth in the Autumn Stakes at Newmarket. The May Hill Stakes winner Aylin was a good fifth behind Diamond Necklace at Longchamp and was another of her sire’s best fillies, while the Ballydoyle colts Piazza San Marco and Port of Spain completed the list of St Mark’s Basilica’s runners rated 100 or more.

TIMEFORM SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD: JIM GOLDIE

Jim Goldie has certainly come a long way since the Jockey Club initially turned him down when he was seeking to get his training career under way. Starting out with jumpers, it took a winner over hurdles at Ayr as a permit-holder to prove to the authorities that he was worthy of a full licence. His first Flat winner came at the same track in 1995 and, thirty years later, Goldie reached the milestone of a thousand Flat winners when Inanna won at his other local course, Hamilton, in July.

That was just one of the highlights of Goldie’s best ever season which also brought him a first Group 1 winner when former handicapper American Affair took his form to a new level by winning the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot, being an excellent example of his trainer’s skill with this type of horse. Having won the Portland the year before, American Affair began his 2025 campaign with further handicap successes at Musselburgh and York on the way to Royal Ascot where he became the first Group 1 winner since the European Pattern was created to be trained in Scotland.

Another landmark for the stable was reaching a hundred winners for the year for the first time, doing so when the filly Krissy won at Wolverhampton just after Christmas. That was a notable improvement on the yard’s previous best score of 78 set two years earlier. Those winners included a second successive Portland, with Eternal Sunshine completing a quick-fire hat-trick off bottom weight under the stable’s 7 lb claimer Lauren Young. Just like American Affair, Goldie had also trained the mare’s dam and grandam and, in her case, her sire Orientor too. Other significant contributors to the yard’s success were Midnight Lion and Jannas Journey who won seven handicaps apiece during 2025. All bar one of Midnight Lion’s wins came at Newcastle – he is already off the mark there too in 2026 – five of them with Young in the saddle, while Jannas Journey reeled off five of her wins in a row in barely more than a month and improved her BHA mark by almost 40 lb.

More from Sporting Life

• Racecards
• Fast results
• Full results and free video replays
• Horse racing news
• Horse racing tips
• Horse racing features
• Download our free iOS and Android app
• Football and other sports tips
• Podcasts and video content

Safer gambling

We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.