Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis

Horse Racing

Tue July 28, 2026 · 3h ago

With a few exceptions, it’s fair to say that most sons and daughters of trainers end up being better trainers than their parents.

That’s not always a high bar, with its level dictated by fashion and circumstance beyond the abilities of the horses involved, but the baseline set by the late Ian Balding was a high one. Best associated with Mill Reef who propelled him to victory in the 1971 British trainers’ championship after wins in the Derby, Eclipse and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in a year in which he also landed the Arc, Balding’s other famous Group 1 winners included Lochsong, Forest Flower, Selkirk, Mrs Penny as well as a favourite of mine in Glint Of Gold.

Andrew Balding got off to something of a stuttering start, training 54 domestic winners in his first season in 2003 and not beating that total until 2008, but since sending out 119 winners in Britain in 2014 he’s only twice failed to reach three figures and last season sent out a career best 192. Not much should be made of the fact he has already surpassed greatly the number of winners his father sent out given opportunities are much more plentiful to come by nowadays, but those winners include two 2000 Guineas (Kameko in 2000 and Chaldean in 2023, a race his father never won), an Oaks (Casual Look in 2003), two Sussex Stakes (Here Comes When in 2017 and Alcohol Free in 2021) and now a King George with dual British and Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes winner Kalpana who is once again a leading candidate for the Arc.

Kalpana (left) powers clear in the King George

Kalpana ran in the Arc last year as a 16/1 shot and finished seventh having become favourite for the race earlier in the season after finishing second in the King George behind Calandagan who wasn’t eligible to run in the Arc being a gelding and won’t be able to contest the race until 2027. That King George was a markedly different one to the latest renewal as it featured just five runners, only two of which were from Ballydoyle, and wasn’t run at the strong gallop the latest one was with the expected pacemaker that day, Continuous, restrained on the heels of his stable companion Jan Brueghel who looked thoroughly cheesed off with the change in tactics.

Calandagan’s winning timefigure after a performance in which pounced impressively from the back of the field to overtake Kalpana in the last hundred yards, was just 106 with Kalpana posting 102; in contrast, Kalpana’s timefigure this time around was 120, testament to the gallop set by Action who was once again sacrificed to help his stable-companions as he had been in the Irish Derby and the Derby before that, while Calandagan’s back in second was 121.

The searching pace at which the race was run might have explained the turnaround in form so far as Calandagan is concerned but Kalpana’s trainer put her improved performance – 4lb better than she had run to previously on Timeform performance ratings, though she had recorded a 121 timefigure in the Aston Park on her reappearance – down to her being a leaner and fitter model than the 2025 version when she apparently held on to more condition than her trainer would have liked. A strongly-run mile and a half is clearly right up her street – though admittedly she won the Fillies & Mares last autumn off a very steady pace against her own sex, most of whom weren’t in her league – but there is a body of evidence building that combination is just a bit too toxic for Calandagan who was also beaten in the last strongly-run mile and a half he encountered here, the 2025 Coronation Cup won by Jan Brueghel in a 126 timefigure. Despite being held up further off the pace than Kalpana as he had been in 2025, on this occasion he ended up running the penultimate furlong 0.12 seconds slower and the final one 0.11 slower.

The one horse whose final furlong got the closest to Kalpana’s was third-placed Benvenuto Cellini who ran pretty much up to his best taking on his elders for the first time and posted a 117 timefigure, slightly below the 121 he’d posted in the Irish Derby. Strong at the finish again as he was then, he’d probably be at least as effective at the St Leger distance but seems unlikely to be given the opportunity.

Dual 2025 Derby winner Lambourn posted his best ever timefigure back in fourth, his 116 marginally better than the 115 he posted at the Curragh and 114 at Epsom, but fifth-placed Goliath (105) might have been expected to have done better given the scenario he faced was near identical to the one in 2024 when he won this race in imperious fashion and stopped the clock at 123. Neither the two Japanese contenders ran any sort of race, the more fancied of them Masquerade Ball (second to Calandagan in last year’s Japan Cup) racing too freely as several of his compatriots have tended to do on the big occasion when sent to Europe in recent seasons, while Minnie Hauk was another major disappointment on the back of her last-time-out second place to Ombudsman in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.

If not vintage, it was one of the best line-ups in the race for a while, though would have been better for the inclusion of Giavellotto whose Hardwicke Stakes win over Kalpana was the third time that he has finished in front of her but wasn’t entered perhaps understandably given he’d finished seven lengths behind Calandagan in the Coronation Cup and four and a quarter more recently in the Sheema Classic.

Moonrise takes control at Ascot under Oisin Murphy

Andrew Balding also won the first of the day’s other two Group races at Ascot, the Princess Margaret Stakes with Moonrise who had last been seen finishing second in the Windsor Castle Stakes at the Royal meeting behind King Of Cloughan who has since been beaten readily in the Prix Robert-Papin by the unbeaten Tokaido who may well turn up at York next month in the valuable Sales race for juveniles.

Moonrise only gave way very late on in the Windsor Castle and besides some natural progression probably also benefitted from a more patient ride, travelling well before leading with more than a furlong to run and always looking likely to hold on despite the winning margin being only a neck. The time was up to scratch, equating to a 97 timefigure, but an ‘exciting finish’ as we are regularly told all close finishes shouldn’t be mistaken for a high-quality finish on this occasion given the distances back to the third, fourth and fifth were just three-quarters of a length, a nose and a neck respectively.

The other Group race, the Valiant Stakes, was won by Kon Tiki who was scoring in Group company for the first time having landed a Listed event at York last year when showing a good turn of foot. On the face of it she hadn’t progressed much since that Listed win, but a ten-month absence after her season was cut short last June won’t have helped and though she was only second on her reappearance in a similar event she split a couple of fillies who are Group 1 performers before finishing fourth in the Duke Of Cambridge. The time was slow and she was well placed throughout and she’s capable of much better on her day than the lowly 70 she needed to win this.

Item is in control of the Sky Bet York Stakes

On a corking day for the stable, the feature race at York, the Sky Bet York Stakes, also went the way of the Balding yard after Derby flop Item got back to winning ways readily for all that outcome didn’t look likely early in the straight.

Item had won the Dante over this course and distance on his reappearance but even then in what was a strongly-run race he’d taken his time to assert before staying on powerfully to score in a 107 timefigure with Derby winner Christmas Day back in third; here, in a race which was more steadily run and returned a timefigure of only 82, he was the first under pressure and looked to be nowhere as Royal Champion loomed up to the leader Pride Of Arras seemingly travelling powerfully, but he found his feet passing the two-furlong marker and ended up winning going away by getting on for three lengths, so becoming the first thee-year-old to win the race in twenty years or so.

A cursory glance at his form might suggest he’s best at a mile and a quarter but not withstanding his Derby effort both his runs at York have suggested strongly that a mile and a half is what he really wants. Given his record at York, the Great Voltigeur is the obvious call.

Cash in with the Blues

There were just four other winning timefigures here and in Ireland last week that exceeded 100 and three of them were recorded by lightly-raced horses of which the first two at least are sure to remain of interest going forward.

The first of the trio of horses is Wyman who landed a rated stakes at Leopardstown in 104. He finished third on his reappearance behind two horses who subsequently ran at Royal Ascot and then won a maiden at the Curragh with a strong-staying performance. Upped three furlongs in trip to thirteen furlongs, surprisingly in view of his pedigree given he is out of a mare by the sprinter Piccolo whose offspring include a couple of five-furlong winners, he put himself on the peripheral St Leger picture with a near four-length win, a distance that would have been greater had he not been eased. He’s improving fast.

The second winner, Soul Love, trained by Karl Burke, had already posted a 100 timefigure when third behind Flora Of Bermuda in the Group 3 Summer Stakes earlier in the month but improved on it at Naas in the Listed Yeomanstown Stud Stakes, returning 102, and has now won four of her six starts.

The third and final horse and only two-year-old in the list is Florida Bay who won the Tyros Stakes in a figure of 102. It was a slightly unsatisfactory race in that he was allowed his own way in front while his better-fancied stablemate Aix La Chapelle looked something of a work in progress. He’s by Mehmas, a popular stallion though one that rarely features at Ballydoyle, and though he’s already been tried at a mile he will probably stay it if given a more patient ride than he was when beaten at it.

All in all, though, he doesn’t appeal from the race as one to follow as much as the runner-up Folsom Blues who shaped like the best horse but was given far too much to do.

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