Round Two between Jan Brueghel and Calandagan is set for Ascot’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes on Saturday.
British racing’s midsummer highlight – and at £1.5 million (over €1.7 million) the most valuable race ever run at Ascot – will stage the latest clash between the pair that fought out a memorable finish to last month’s Coronation Cup.
On that occasion, last year’s St Leger hero Jan Brueghel delivered a doughty performance to win by half-a-length for Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore.
Since then, his French rival has impressed with a Group One victory of his own in the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud, when he emphatically ended a streak of four runner-up placings.
RM Block
It helped quash some doubters of Calandagan’s resolution after he was outstayed by the Irish winner on easy going at Epsom.
Conditions look like being quicker this weekend over the course and distance Calandagan impressed when landing last year’s King Edward VII Stakes.
Just eight entries were left in the King George at Monday’s acceptance stage, half of them from O’Brien. They include the dual-Derby hero Lambourn and Whirl, winner of the Pretty Polly Stakes, although the trainer has indicated both will skip Ascot to wait for other assignments.
Jessica Harrington left in Green Impact, sixth to Lambourn in last month’s Irish Derby, while Kalpana, runner-up to Whirl on her last start at the Curragh, is on course to try her repeat her Group One success at Ascot last autumn.
Barry Mahon, racing manager for Kalpana’s Juddmonte ownership said: “She is all systems go for the King George. This has been her intended target since her last run in Ireland, and she is in good shape.
“I think her two runs this year have been very solid. We know she is proven over a mile and a half on soft ground, so for her to produce those performances over 10 furlongs on quicker ground is very promising.
“We would be hopeful of a strong showing on Saturday back over 12 furlongs, for all it looks a competitive race. Calandagan is a top-class horse, and we all saw what Jan Brueghel did at Epsom.”
Bookmakers struggled to split Jan Brueghel and Calandagan after Monday’s entry, with some making the pair 15-8 joint-favourites.
In other news, advance ticket sales for next week’s Galway festival are up, with significant cross-channel interest for the weekend action.
Galway’s chief executive Michael Moloney believes the summer showpiece is benefiting from an overall trend of greater numbers of racegoers coming from Britain for big racing festivals here.
“We’ve seen UK attendances increase at other Irish festivals and I think we get that bounce, too, coming into the weekend. They take the opportunity to come over and it’s great to get it,” he said on Monday.
February’s Dublin Racing Festival, in particular, has seen a surge of cross-channel racegoers with up to 38 per cent of overall attendance made up of visitors last year.
Moloney said that hospitality for one of the most famous racing dates of the year in Ireland has all but sold out.
Last year’s festival attendance at Ballybrit reached 116,374 over the seven days. That was a significant drop from 122,362 in 2023, but on a par with 2022. The two years prior to that were held behind closed doors due to the Covid pandemic. Almost 150,000 attended a decade ago.
