Qipco Champion Stakes: Horse-by-horse guide to Ascot Champions Day showpiece

This year's Champion Stakes looks as competitive an edition as we have seen with the likes of Calandagan, Delacroix, Ombudsman and a further eight standing their ground for the Group One contest and Jamie Lynch has provided a guide to preview the Ascot showpiece.

Jamie Lynch

Horse Racing Expert

Saturday 18 October 2025 09:12, UK

Jamie Lynch on the star-studded cast, featuring Calandagan, Delacroix, and Ombudsman in Saturday's showpiece, live on Sky Sports Racing, on what could be the race of the year.

Races don't get any better than the Qipco Champion Stakes, something to shout about when you get two top-class horses in combat, never mind three as at 4.05 at Ascot on Saturday, live on Sky Sports Racing. The stakes couldn't be higher and the ground couldn't be much drier for the time of the year, setting us up for the race of the year, and maybe many a year.

1. Almaqam (1)

Jockey: K Shoemark | Trainer: E Walker

Has the distinction of being one of only two horses to have beaten Ombudsman, though he had a positional and fitness edge that day, in May in the Brigadier Gerard, and he has since been overturned in Group Twos under quicker conditions, the latest in an Arc trial before missing the main event itself in a misplaced fear of getting the sort of ground that he'll ironically be facing at Ascot, when softer is said to suit him best. He might be the right horse in the wrong year, considering the class and conditions of this Champion Stakes.

2. Calandagan (7)

M Barzalona | F Graffard

The president of the castration nation, and two wins have flipped the two words that haunted him: from is he? To he is. The question inevitably stemmed from his sequence of seconds, but the answer in the affirmative came with back-to-back wins including the King George, in which "his 34.48s for the final 3f smashed Nashwan's 35.2s for the same section in 1989…and Adayar's 35.3s for winners of this historic race from 1970 onwards," revealed Simon Rowlands in the Expert Analysis summary of the race on the atthearces.com.

That's what marks him out from the mile and a half crowd, but Ombudsman and Delacroix are different beasts, for all that Calandagan completed the Juddmonte last year (in second behind City Of Troy) over 3s faster than they did this year, not slower than them by any means, but his powers won't be so debilitating nor destructive as they were on Kalpana, Rebel's Romance and Aventure. However, his acceleration is a component part, not the sum of his parts, and Calandagan has been to places in races neither Ombudsman nor Delacroix have, while the very real prospect of a relay race will be right up his street, given the brilliant blend he brings.

3. Economics (10)

Tom Marquand | W J Haggas

Broke a blood vessel when he went off 2-1 for the 2024 edition, by which time his rapid rise up the ranks had established him in the top ten turf horses in the world, with four wins in a row, culminating in the Irish Champion Stakes. There are tough comebacks and then there's this, the highest-quality race in any jurisdiction in 2025, unreasonable to expect Economics to play much of a part after a year out, but there's always a chance of a surprise with a horse and trainer of such talent.

4. First Look (5)

James Doyle | A Fabre

Finished fourth in Calandagan's King Edward VII and stuck in that second-level rut for the next year or so, up until a gelding operation refocused the mind and regathered his momentum, successful on all three starts since, including a defeat of Goliath, before winning the Prix Dollar with a similar swagger to what Cirrus Des Aigles used to do it the three times before he went on to the Champion Stakes (for a win and two seconds). Another bridge to build - in double-quick time - to this elite level, but a significant supplementary entry by Andre Fabre.

5. Fox Legacy (2)

James Doyle | A Fabre

When the other nominees are Never So Brave and More Thunder he won't be winning stable switcher of the year, but he's not far off them after three wins and 16 pounds of improvement, ready and able for Group races now. But this isn't just any Group race and, in fact, it's not just any Group One, making it an mission impossible - at least in win terms - for one rated 116, whatever his well-being.

6. Ombudsman (9)

W Buick | J & T Gosden

When does good become great? By consensus, by convention, we so far view Ombudsman as a really good horse, rather than a great, let alone a giant, but is that perhaps selling him short? There haven't been many mile and a quarter specialists in recent times who've generated the electricity that he has on occasions, and there haven't been many in any time who've won a Prince of Wales and a Juddmonte International by a combined total of five and a half lengths, against seven different Group One winners.

His development - later and further afield, in France, last year - meant he missed the hype train, and then there's the more meaningful matter of two defeats this campaign (one at the hands of Delacroix), checks and balances that lock the gateway to greatness in its multi-faceted form, but expressively and explosively, in pure performance terms, Ombudsman has looked a worldie at times. To rate as a great, consistency and longevity wins hearts and minds, but pace and power wins races, and Ombudsman has those assets in abundance. In the game of show and tell, you can tell people he's officially the number one horse on the planet, but moreover you can show it, and you can see why, from one of several special showstoppers.

7. Prague (3)

Benoit D L Sayette | Dylan Cunha

A surprise package in his first season and ended up as fourth-favourite for the QEII, but his levels have dropped this year, failing to make the podium in lesser events than this, and the new trip won't help matters.

8. Almeric (6)

Oisin Murphy | A M Balding

The mystery box. Undefeated since his debut, just three races with long spaces and all on ground softer than good, up to listed level only, and so this is a world away in every respect, but it says a lot that his top trainer is setting him this assignment, while Oisin Murphy has always spoken very highly of him. All the same, he's only a contender via conjecture, in essence not in evidence.

9. Delacroix (4)

Jockey TBC | A P O'Brien

Maybe there's a hidden meaning, that the 'X' at the end of Delacroix is not a letter but the numeral to denote what version of him we're up to, the tenth software update having amped up the power to facilitate the freakishly fast-forward move off the home turn which won him the Irish Champion Stakes. The point is that the current incarnation of Delacroix is unrecognisable from the one who was beaten in his first two Group races and trailed in ninth in the Derby, but he's been Ballydole's best bounce-backer and every one of his five career defeats has been followed by a win with an upgrade, the rebound riser, working his way to becoming the joint-fourth best turf horse in the world on the Longines Rankings, having already given a black eye to the one in the top spot.

It's 1-1 between him and Ombudsman, the International at York the more convincing in mode and margin, but neither that nor the Coral-Eclipse was a completely fair fight for one reason or another, and even now, 11 races in, Delacroix is still beefing up his game. What we saw in Ireland is enough to worry Ombudsman and Calandagan, but it's perhaps what we haven't seen that could win him the Champion Stakes, another gear to engineer, another pound to be found, another software update to install in a career of constant add-ons.

10. Devil's Advocate (11)

R Havlin | J & T Gosden

All-the-way win in Doncaster handicap last time was enough for the Gosdens and Godolphin to draft him in as a pacemaker for Ombudsman.

11. Mount Kilimanjaro (8)

Jockey TBC | A P O'Brien

There didn't seem much between him and Delacroix in the pecking order at one stage, and Mount Kilamanjaro won a Derby trial himself, but he's now reduced to the role of pacemaker, that much clear from the Irish Champion.

Jamie Lynch's Verdict

It's normally the contrasts between the contenders which sets alight to such showdowns, as in 'styles make fights,' but what's remarkable about this royal rumble is how similar their signature styles are, fighting fire with fire and fire, with each of the big three blessed with a booster button, the where and when of deployment likely to be the deciding factor. But in a marginal rather than meaningful way, Ombudsman has done things the other two haven't, in transmission and in traffic. To put it scientifically, in this most whooshy of races, Ombudsman's whoosh looks even whooshier than the others.

Watch every race on Qipco British Champions Day at Ascot live on Sky Sports Racing (Sky 415 | Virgin 519) on Saturday October 18 from 12.30pm.