Andrew Balding’s four-year-old had run admirably in defeat in both her prior outings this term, last seen going down fighting in a titanic dual with Whirl on the Curragh last month.
Returned to her favoured distance of a mile and a half, it momentarily looked like Kalpana had slipped the field when Oisin Murphy asked the Juddmonte-owned filly to quicken.
However, hot on her tail was Francis-Henri Graffard’s French raider Calandagan, who ensured Kalpana had to once again dip into her reserves and battle before being thwarted close home.
“I’m very proud of her, she’s run her heart out again and just been beaten by a very good horse,” said Balding.
“She’s done nothing wrong, had every chance, just bumped into a quick one on the day.
“It would have probably helped our cause if a bit more rain had got into the ground, but we can’t complain.”
For Juddmonte it was once again Graffard who proved their nemesis after Goliath denied Bluestocking 12 months ago.
Ralph Beckett’s filly would of course claim the Prix Vermeille and then the Arc, and hopes are high Kalpana could do the same.
THE FRENCH RAIDER HAS DONE IT! 🇫🇷
CALANDAGAN WINS THE KING GEORGE VI AND QUEEN ELIZABETH STAKES! pic.twitter.com/BlIgk4azOj
— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) July 26, 2025
Her route to the Arc could see her follow Bluestocking and head to ParisLongchamp for an early sighter in the Vermeille.
But Balding could instead use another route successfully used by a Juddmonte star in the past – and search for back-to-back victories in Kempton’s September Stakes, a race Enable won before downing Sea Of Class in the French capital in 2018.
“She’s a class act and she’s tightened up again since her two runs and come forward again, we’re excited about the autumn,” added Balding.
“I would have thought that was a career-best effort and we’ll be working back from Paris in October.
“She’s in the Yorkshire Oaks, but she’s had a hard race today and we’ll work back from the Arc.
“We could head to the Vermeille, but she hasn’t won a race yet this year so could go to the September Stakes without a penalty which might be an easier ‘in’.
“It is likely to be one or the other and there’s an extra week this year from the Vermeille to the Arc so anything is possible.
“The Kempton race she won last year and is on our doorstep and you are guaranteed the surface. But the Vermeille could be a good shot at a Group One, so we’ll see.”
Also given an international objective, albeit further afield, is Charlie Appleby’s stable stalwart Rebel’s Romance who was a luckless third in his quest to follow up Hardwicke Stakes success at Royal Ascot.
Short of room at a vital stage, William Buick was forced to sit and suffer, as he repeated last year’s placed effort in the race.
Appleby said: “He ran a solid race. It was a tactical race in a small field and no one would have expected the leader to be who it was (Jan Brueghel). It was very slow fractions in the first half a mile.
“We were in that pocket and with a horse that we know gallops we would have liked to have got out and got rolling. The rain earlier was nothing and that didn’t settle the dust.
“He will go on his travels again now and we will point him towards the Canadian International.”
