Our Ben Linfoot reflects on the King George and the Sky Bet York Stakes in his Saturday analysis and he takes the positives from the runners-up.
Cal class, Kalpana Arc-bound
For all that Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle team get so much right in the big races, there are plenty of examples where they get it wrong and Saturday’s King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes was another of those occasions.
Jan Brueghel is a St Leger winner who can perform to a high level over 1m4f granted the right set of circumstances, but he needs a strong gallop as an absolute prerequisite and making it himself off slow fractions with his pacemaker behind in him second meant the writing was on the wall very early.
Why was Continuous even in there if he wasn’t to go off like he did at Epsom? Merely as a spoiler? Could neither he nor Jan Brueghel go any quicker? Whatever the reason, this goes in the Ballydoyle bad days drawer along with last year’s King George and this year’s Prince Of Wales’s.
You can certainly see why the first-time cheekpieces were utilised by O’Brien in a bid to help Jan Brueghel travel, but he was first off the bridle and he looks to need a more severe set of headgear if connections persevere with him over this trip.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him go out in distance after this though, as he was made to look slow as both CALANDAGAN and Kalpana enhanced their reputations, Francis-Henri Graffard’s gelding putting in the sort of performance he has so often promised.
Beaten by Jan Brueghel in the Coronation Cup, that was a race that was filed in the Ballydoyle good day drawer as Continuous set things up perfectly for his stablemate, Ryan Moore getting him rolling down the camber nicely as Calandagan struggled to get organised.
Epsom can catch out many a good horse, though, and back at Ascot Calandagan looked much more himself, displaying a high-class change of gear to wear down Kalpana who had made a good job of going about her own business as she went a couple of lengths clear.
Barred from running in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see Graffard drop him back to 10 furlongs next time out, the Juddmonte International mooted in the aftermath and it would be great to see him turn up at York.
Rebel’s Romance somehow found trouble in-running in a five-runner field, but the worry with him was always going to be that he might get outpaced by Calandagan and Kalpana who both look to have the slightest of class edges on him.
Kalpana has been beaten three times this season but she lost nothing in defeat and is compiling the sort of profile that makes her a very enticing betting proposition indeed for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Her behaviour was exemplary beforehand and she settled beautifully, looking the most straightforward filly and she has the ability to match as she showed when almost getting away from all of them in the straight.
We know how much she loves softer ground after her win in the Fillies & Mares on Champions Day last year and she could easily find further significant improvement when she gets cut in the ground later in the campaign.
Indeed, any double-figure prices (10/1 is still available) about the daughter of Study Of Man for the Arc look big, her trainer Andrew Balding contemplating the September Stakes at Kempton, a race she won easily last year, or the Prix Vermeille as a stepping stone.
Whichever route she takes she is looking more and more capable of following in the hoofprints of Juddmonte fillies Enable and Bluestocking, who made their own pieces of history in the Longchamp showpiece.
Kalpana could be the next cab off the rank.
Don’t give up on Almaqam
Up at York, Royal Champion was much too good for Almaqam in the Group 2 Sky Bet York Stakes, winning by two-and-three-quarter lengths after travelling smoothly into the race under a confident Clifford Lee.
This was a career-best from Royal Champion and he punched his ticket to another crack at a Group 1 at the age of seven (could he even be supplemented for the Juddmonte International?), but I wouldn’t be giving up on the runner-up who ran another good race in second.
Odds-on in the week, he was weak in the market in the face of support for Royal Champion and others, going off 6/4 after touching 2/1 on the exchanges, and concerns over factors like the speedy track and the drying ground were valid.
You could perhaps add ring rustiness to that list, too, as the dry summer saw him miss Royal Ascot meaning this was his first run in two months and he was slowly away, held up in the rear by Kieran Shoemark, before he gradually picked off his rivals in the straight.
He had no answer to Royal Champion who travelled into things much more smoothly, this only reiterating the notion that Almaqam needs a stiffer 10 furlongs and softer ground to perform at his very best.
Perhaps Shoemark could’ve been more proactive, as Oisin Murphy was on the horse in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes when he broke well from a low draw and made all to beat Ombudsman, the subsequent Prince Of Wales’s winner.
That form still marks Almaqam out as a horse going places and if he gets a stiffer 10 furlongs on softer ground he can still be a player in races like the Champion Stakes as the season enters its autumn stage.
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