Juddmonte International Stakes (G1)
York - 19th August 2026
“It may not have been the result that the market expected, but the Juddmonte International was still won by a highly progressive 3-year-old, who finished his race in the manner of a horse who belongs at this level”.
Sherlock Holmes would say that “in some cases the art of the reasoner should be used for the sifting of facts rather than for the acquiring of fresh evidence”. The Juddmonte International of 2026 is one of those cases. I can’t add anything on the pacemakers’ tactics or the going or the way the race panned out and where the various jockeys chose to make their challenge that won’t have already been discussed. The various sets of connections have had their say on how their charges performed and why they may or may not have been able to match their pre-race expectations. What we can say is that a winning time of 2:08.44 was 0.96s quicker than the TPD Expected time for a class 1 race on going described as “good”. Given that this was Group 1 and easily the best race to be run over this course and distance in the calendar, that’s not surprising but the time was 5.5s quicker than our expected figure for soft conditions. The rain had clearly had at least some effect on the conditions and we do also have to bare in mind that the early leaders went very hard, with Hawk Mountain leading the field to the halfway point in 1:06.50. That meant that he was only 0.68s behind last year’s runaway leader (Birr Castle) who had a 20 length lead at halfway on “Good to Firm” ground. Finishing speeds below 100% for all bar the first 2 to cross the line would point to that theory too and so if you are looking for a reason to forgive Constitution River, then his proximity to that early pace would be the primary reason. He pulled so hard that he ended up in front of one of the other more likely pacemakers (Devil’s Advocate) and failed to settle despite Ryan Moore’s urgings. It wasn’t ideal and without cover, he looked to be far too free to ever last home in these conditions, but it would be a mistake to try and spend too much time making excuses for him or Ombudsman for that matter. William Buick did his best, but he was last after a furlong and after briefly closing with a race best 11.98s for the 5th furlong, he was quickly beaten when Almaqam and Item moved on. Closing furlongs that ranked 3rd, 2nd and 4th would suggest that he still ran his race, but unlike Ascot, the slower surface and the fact that the race developed much sooner in the longer York straight, proved to be insurmountable for a horse whose best form has come on good to firm ground in Berkshire.
However, I can feel myself digressing and I don’t want to. Item was superb. Group 1 races are often won by the horses who race in the most efficient manner and that’s what Item did under Colin Keane. An average stride length of 24.30 ft ranked 1st, despite the fact that both Almaqam and Constitution River reached longer peak figures than the 25.87 ft that he stretched to. Most importantly, his minimum average stride frequency dropped as low as 2.06 per second, the lowest in the field and the ability to conserve energy at a time when others were using theirs was key. He finished his race well, with a time of 12.29s for the final furlong that was enough to see off Almaqam, despite being carried slightly towards the stands side and a run-out speed of 34.63 mph was better than anything else in the field, as well as being above our expected average figure for a winner of this race. Those are the bare facts. The data would suggest that Item was the best horse in the race and given the way that he had to work to get past Almaqam, eventually switching to his right hand side to get a clear run, I can’t make any excuses for the runner-up.
It may not have been the result that the market expected, but the Juddmonte International was still won by a highly progressive 3-year-old, who finished his race in the manner of a horse who belongs at this level. He settled, he handled conditions, he stayed well and he finished his race stronger than anything else. A lot of column inches will no doubt be taken up by the beaten horses, but the majority of them were at least 4 lengths behind when Item crossed the line and the advantage of looking at the data, rather than just the video replay, is that your eyes are drawn to asking why, as opposed to why not? Item’s best form has come at York, but I think that is really just a coincidence after just 6 starts. If we take out his defeat in a soft ground Derby at Epsom, he has been largely flawless and given the way he finished in the Juddmonte International, I think Andrew Balding’s charge is far from finished climbing this upward curve of improvement that he appears to be on.