Ascot: Jamie Lynch's King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes runner guide

This has all the hallmarks of an epic edition of one of the great races, internationally renowned and internationally reliant this year with the best of France and Japan in round two of their heavyweight clash.

But the race is far more than a rematch, considering there are as many as six other Group 1 winners in the mix, including an all-important Classic-winning three-year-old from Ballydoyle to trigger the generation game. This is what King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes are supposed to look like.

Watch every race from King George Weekend at Ascot live on Sky Sports Racing on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th July.

BAY CITY ROLLER

Trainer: George Scott | Jockey: TBC

"If this, then that." The principle of conditional logic, and the fundamental formula with him: if soft ground, then Bay City Roller. Such a crude conversion does him a disservice, of course, but the fact of the matter is that he goes from Bruce Banner to the Incredible Hulk when he gets the mud.

• What a race! Zigazig Ah claims victory in Newbury thriller
• Johanna Walsh steps up to deliver effortless Irish Oaks success

This is emphasised by his two Group 1 wins under such conditions by seven lengths (in Munich) and 10 lengths, the latter the Coronation Cup in which he marched on mercilessly after Calandagan and co had waved the white flag. His rivals won't be watered down in the King George as they were at Epsom.

CALANDAGAN

Jockey: Mickael Barzalona | Trainer: Francis-Henri Graffard

Racehorses like him don't come along very often. You can see why he's so good, you just see it so rarely, that magical mix of a mile-and-a-half horse who can hit the sexy speeds of a sprinter. He's able to throw in sub 11-second furlongs at will, as well as regularly breaking the 40 mph limit of the middle-distance motorway.

He has never gone faster than he did in the finish of the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud last time, not only a reaction but also a statement with a snarl after what happened to him at Epsom, at the bottom of his list of favourite courses, whereas Ascot would be at the top.

The same can be said for the world's joint-best horse Ombudsman who has been utterly unbeatable at the track…until he met Calandagan. The frequency and fire of his elite-level performances make him a modern great, so much so that he's single-handedly forcing the French to change their rules in order to sprinkle his gold dust at home as well as abroad. But, for now, Ascot is Calandagan's perfect canvas on which to paint his flair-filled works of art.

GOLIATH

Jockey: Christophe Soumillon | Trainer: Francis-Henri Graffard

They call it distance decay, the simple effect that near things are more related and relevant than far things, and, by this stage, Goliath's 2024 King George win qualifies as a far thing, especially as he has never fully reproduced it. His rating in winning that renewal, of 127, was 2lb higher than Calandagan's assessment a year later, and justifiably so given who he beat (Bluestocking) and how he beat her, in a strongly-run race which admittedly hasn't really come his way since.

However, there has been a spike on the swagger-gram more recently, from the way he won the Grand Prix de Chantilly and the way that he cruised into contention in the Hardwicke, before Soumillon's foot slipped out of his iron. There's a scenario where he shines brightly again.

LAMBOURN

Trainer: Aidan O'Brien | Jockey: TBC

His talent never matched his tagline of dual Derby winner, and this season has furthermore been the firework which fizzles out meekly. His defeat of Bay City Roller at Chester on his comeback was another false positive, as it has all been negative ever since, in the jetwash of Calandagan at Saint-Cloud last time.

MASQUERADE BALL

Trainer: Takahisa Tezuka | Jockey: Christophe Lemaire

Sharing top billing as Japan's best horse of 2025 with living legend Forever Young on the Longines Rankings, robustly rationalised by giving Calandagan all he could handle in the Japan Cup, in a course record, are achievements all the more wondrous when you consider he was only a three-year-old.

Get racing news on your phone

Never miss a story with all the latest racing news, interviews and features on your phone. Find out more

He's liable to be more potent and powerful in 2026, and his only race so far did little to dissuade, runner-up in the QEII Cup in Hong Kong to another modern great, Romantic Warrior, when trying to come from last over 1¼m.

He's the best horse that Japan has ever sent to the King George, and if you could ask Calandagan himself who's the toughest opponent he's faced, I reckon he'd say City of Troy first but then Masquerade Ball second, ahead of Ombudsman.

WURTTEMBERG

Trainer: Hiroshi Miyamoto | Jockey: Oisin Murphy

A compatriot of Masquerade Ball but he wouldn't be in the same class nor category. His last three races have come at two miles or above, though it was only the top-tier Croix du Nord who did for him in the Tenno Sho (Spring) in May and that one had beaten the fast-finishing Masquerade Ball in last year's Japanese Derby. A six-year-old, his rating of 116 puts him behind all bar Lambourn and Action.

KALPANA

Jockey: Colin Keane | Trainer: Andrew Balding

She's a millionaire with seven wins on her CV, including back-to-back Fillies & Mares' Stakes on Champions Day, and yet there's still an air of the bridesmaid about her in that she's defined more by her seconds than her firsts.

The key one was in this race last year in which she got Calandagan down to his dregs - the performance of her life - but the Hardwicke last time looked hers for the taking before she bowed to her bête noire Giavellotto. This is a deeper renewal than 2025 but she's got the game to make the podium once again.

MINNIE HAUK

Trainer: Aidan O'Brien | Jockey TBC

Everyone is aware of FOMO, fewer have heard of KIMO, the past tense equivalent, knowing I missed out and the regret or envy therein. It felt like the 2025 Arc was her life's work, amplified by the fact she had a hoof or two on the prize up the straight, and the come down affected her at the Breeders' Cup and maybe ever since. True, she turned the tables on a sub-par Daryz in the Prince of Wales at Royal Ascot but she never laid a glove on Ombudsman, the spark of last summer still missing. The return to 1½m could be the connecting rod to her full force, but by now it's more a possibility than a probability.

Follow Sky Sports Racing on X

See the latest horse racing news, interviews and features from Sky Sports Racing

ACTION

Trainer: Aidan O'Brien | Jockey TBC

More than a bit-part player in the Derby after his second in the Dante but checked out tamely at Epsom and they leaned into his front-running style all the more in the Irish equivalent. Projects to be pacemaker here, whether it's clarified or not.

BENVENUTO CELLINI

Trainer: Aidan O'Brien | Jockey TBC

If facts hurt your feelings, you need new feelings, not new facts. The same rule applies if facts hurt your argument, but facts don't adequately summarise the snowballing storm that is Benvenuto Cellini, who transmits in feelings not facts and deals in divination not data.

Even with the weight-for-age, a rating of 119 is the equivalent of bringing a knife to the King George gunfight, but the more you rewatch the end of the Irish Derby the more you feel that we could still be just scratching the surface with him, in tandem with the show he put on at Chester.

Since Galileo in 2001, Aidan O'Brien has run only three winners of a Derby in the King George as three-year-olds, but one was Auguste Rodin - with whom Benvenuto Cellini has always had some symmetry, if more in feeling than fact.

JAMIE LYNCH'S VERDICT

A top-tier turnout in prospect, making for one of the races of the season and potentially the decade, but the amazing thing about CALANDAGAN is that there's nothing here to scare him, given the CV he's compiled and the heightened powers he's displayed along the way, all around the world. Armed to the teeth and assured underneath, he's got an answer for whatever or whoever gets in his way.