Calandagan storms from last to first in Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud repeat
Calandagan came from 12 lengths back to defend his Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud crown, beating Cualificar by a neck in 2:27.27 and making history as the race's first dual-winning gelding.
Calandagan delivered the kind of late surge that changes a race’s hierarchy, sweeping from last to first in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and edging Cualificar by a neck in 2:27.27. Sunly was third, three-quarters of a length behind the runner-up, but the story belonged to the 2025 champion who once again found more when the pressure was at its fiercest.
The race at Saint-Cloud’s Val d'Or racecourse on Sunday, July 5, 2026, was run at a strong tempo set by Lambourn, who finished fifth after forcing the issue. Calandagan was about 12 lengths off that pace before Mickael Barzalona asked him to move with two and a half furlongs to run, and the response was as brutal as it was controlled. Racing through the final three furlongs in 32.67 seconds, he lengthened rather than flattened, the exact trait that has made him such a difficult horse to contain at the top level.
That mattered because this was not simply another classy Group 1 win. France Galop said the race was widely regarded as one of the finest 2,400-metre contests staged in Europe this year, and Calandagan answered it by becoming the first gelding ever to win the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud twice. It was also his sixth Group 1 victory, a figure that places him among Europe’s benchmark turf horses and gives the Aga Khan Studs a seventh victory in the race.
The rebound carried extra weight after Calandagan’s disappointing Coronation Cup run at Epsom on heavy ground. Francis-Henri Graffard and Princess Zahra Aga Khan had both stressed the horse’s ability to build his run rather than deliver one short burst, and that profile was on full display here as he kept extending after the leaders began to tire. For a horse already proven in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, the Qipco Champion Stakes and the Japan Cup, the Saint-Cloud repeat reinforced that his 2025 campaign was no one-off.
It also sharpened the question of what comes next. A return to the King George at Ascot on July 25 now looks like the most sporting target, especially for a horse whose record already includes a King George win and a Longines rating of 130 that made him the world’s best racehorse for 2025. Calandagan did not just defend a title in Paris; he strengthened his claim as one of the defining turf performers of his generation.
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