Let’s start with some of the basic facts. A winning time of 2:27.72 was 2s faster than last year’s race and 0.55s quicker than the TPD expected time figure for a Group 1 race on Good to Firm ground over this course and distance. As a winning time in isolation, it ranked 4th in the last 10 years, with Goliath (2024), Adayar (2021) and Poet’s Word (2018) the winners too have gone faster. However, the first point we can make is that Kalpana has improved her time by 2.19s over the last 12 months and under a brilliant ride from Colin Keane, she found plenty when it mattered in the closing stages. Sat behind the pace setting trio from Ballydoyle, she was ideally placed to ensure that she had the first run on her main market rivals. Given that her average stride length of 23.52 ft was over a foot shorter than Calandagan’s (24.71 ft) and more than two feet shorter than Benvenuto Cellini’s (25.78 ft) that seemed like a very sound strategy. With an advantage of 0.34s over the runner-up at halfway, she traveled nicely into the home straight and when the race began to develop, she found plenty for Colin Keane to record the fastest final 2 furlong splits in the field in 11.98 and 12.69s. Over the final 6 furlongs of the race, Calandagan was only 0.08s quicker than Kalpana on the clock, compared to the 0.41s that he made up on her in the 2025 race. Her form figures at Ascot over this distance now read as 312121 and I have no doubt that this was a career best performance from Andrew Balding’s daughter of Study of Man. She recorded a finishing speed of 107% in last year’s race and the smaller field and sprint finish on that occasion clearly played into the hands of Mickael Barzalona aboard Calandagan, who has the much higher top speed figures on his résumé. This year, with Aidan O’Brien’s older horses setting a faster early pace, presumably with the intention of stretching Calandagan’s stamina to reduce his finishing kick, Kalpana was seen to best effect and a finishing speed of 100.7% in a race run at a more even gallop suited her perfectly. 

Andrew Balding’s post-race comments to Sky Sports Racing that “Anything is possible moving forwards and we’ll discuss it. The Arc didn’t work out last year because of the draw and that is a danger again, but anything is possible and she’s thriving on her racing, so you couldn’t even rule out the Yorkshire Oaks, she’s right at the top of her game” would look to point to the fact that she will have further top level assignments in the weeks and months ahead. Given that she has beaten the 130-rated Calandagan by over a length and he in turn was running the fastest time figure that he has ever run at Ascot, she’s going to be very hard to oppose wherever she goes. Colin Keane is learning about her all the time and delivered her to perfection on Saturday having waited slightly longer than he had in the Hardwicke Stakes to play his hand. She clearly stays well and her stride frequency figure fell by less than 3% in the final furlong after peaking with a quarter of a mile to run at 2.43 strides per second. She has had a couple of defeats in races where the pace has been sedate for the first mile and that may be the only chink in her armour, but as Kalpana proved on Saturday, in a truly run race over 12 furlongs, she is very very good and she has now safely dispelled any thoughts that she was better on a softer surface. When I wrote a preview of this race for TPD, I highlighted that we had several of the World’s best racehorses all in one place. I was slightly dismissive of Kalpana and for that I feel I should apologise. She has reversed the 2025 form and done so with something in hand. This race was won by one of the World’s best racehorses and Kalpana has now earned her place in those conversations after this performance.