Key events
KING GEORGE CONTENDER: MASQUERADE BALL
Age: 4. Career: 9 races, 4 wins. Group One wins: 1. Trainer: Takahisa Tezuka. Timeform rating: 129
As noted in the form profile of Calandagan, the ratings suggest that it will take a new career-best to lower the favourite’s colours today and Japan’s best turf horse is, on paper at least, the likeliest contender to find the necessary improvement.
He has just one Group One win to his name so far, but that came in the Autumn Tenno Sho, one of Japan’s most prestigious events, last November.
He was then just a head behind Calandagan having set off as the favourite for the Japan Cup, when he was the only horse to give the winner a serious race.
Takahisa Tezuka’s four-year-old has had just one race since, when second to the Hong Kong-based superstar Romantic Warrior at Sha Tin over 10 furlong in April.
The step back up to a mile-and-a-half should suit Masquerade Ball, and Tezuka reported after he had exercised in Newmarket earlier this week that his runner has improved “both mentally and physically” from three to four. If so, he looks more than ready to run a huge race this afternoon in an attempt to become the first Japanese-trained King George winner.
KING GEORGE CONTENDER: CALANDAGAN
Age: 5. Career: 17 races, 10 wins. Group One wins: 6. Trainer: Francis-Henri Graffard. Timeform rating: 133
There will not be much time to pause for breath once the ITV Racing programme is underway so this is a good moment to run through some of the main contenders for the big race, and last year’s King George winner is the only place to start.
He finished the 2025 campaign as the world’s top-rated racehorse, 2lb in front of five others that raced at various trips, including today’s rival, Masquerade Ball.
His subsequent win in the Japan Cup, with Masquerade Ball a head away in second, capped an extraordinary season for Francis-Henri Graffard, his trainer, who also took the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Daryz and ended the year as France’s champion trainer for the first time.
The current 13-8 favourite for today’s big race is on a run of six wins in seven starts, all at the highest level, with the only blip being his fourth-of-six on rain-softened ground in the Coronation Cup at Epsom in June.
But he bounced back to winning form in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud last time out:
… and the bottom line is that Calandagan is richly-talented, tough and dependable, and it is likely to need a career-best from one of his rivals to stop him winning a second successive King George.
Preamble
Welcome to Ascot for one of the grand occasions of the racing year – King George day, featuring the most valuable and prestigious all-aged Group One of the British season.
The King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, to give it its full title, is a relative youngster on the Ascot programme, having been first staged in 1951 (all of 144 years after the first Gold Cup in 1807). But it swiftly became a fixture in the top-level racing programme, with the second and third runnings both won by that year’s Derby winner – Tulyar in 1952 and Pinza in 1953 – and many, in fact most, of the true middle-distance greats since then are on the roll of honour. Ribot, Nijinsky, Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard, Shergar, Dancing Brave, Mtoto … the list goes on and on, and there was, of course, also the Race of the Century when Grundy saw off Bustino after an epic tussle down the straight in 1975.
That said, however, the King George has struggled to maintain its consistent, unmissable quality since the turn of the century, and has fallen well behind its French equivalent, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October, in terms of prize money and, if we’re honest about it, prestige.
It is a situation that Ascot is determined to address – or redress – and the prize money is an obvious place to start. This year’s race is worth £2m and next year it will be up to £2.5m, and the initiative has had an immediate reward in terms of the quality of this year’s field.
It is, quite simply, the best King George for at least 20 years, with seven previous Group One winners in a field of nine and the two top-rated middle-distance horses in the world last year – Calandagan, last year’s winner, and Masquerade Ball, Japan’s top turf horse – heading the market.
It is the highlight of a card that also includes the Princess Margaret Stakes for juvenile fillies at 1.45 and the ever-popular International Stakes Handicap over seven furlongs at 2.55, while the ITV cameras will also be rolling for three races at York including the Group Two York Stakes at 2.35.
Picks for the seven ITV races are here, and all the news, views, betting moves and more will be here on the blog – along with closer looks at the main King George contenders – as we head towards the feature race at 3.35. The first race here at Ascot is a maiden at 1.10, but the meat of the card is underway at 1.45 and ITV’s coverage is off and running with the Jump Jockeys’ Nunthorpe at 1.30.
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