Giavellotto stuns Kalpana with late Hardwicke Stakes rally

Giavellotto turned the Hardwicke Stakes into a revival, finding one more late surge to collar Kalpana by a short head and flip the script on a horse who had looked the part of a fading force. On good-to-firm ground over 1m3f211y at 15:05 at Ascot, Oisin Murphy delivered a patient ride that mattered most when the race got serious, and the veteran from Marco Botti’s yard repaid the faith at 9-1 in a 12-runner Group 2 worth £141,775 to the winner.

The result mattered because Giavellotto arrived with his reputation under pressure, not his ability. He had already shown he belonged at the top level by winning the 2024 Hong Kong Vase, the Yorkshire Cup and the Princess of Wales’s Stakes, and he had also beaten Kalpana in last year’s September Stakes. But those older achievements had started to feel distant after a string of defeats. At Ascot, the old punch returned at the exact moment Murphy needed it, giving him his first Royal Ascot winner of 2026 on his 26th attempt.

Kalpana, the 9-4 favorite, was still the horse to beat turning for home, and that is what made the finish so compelling. The field had been billed as exceptionally strong, with multiple Group and Grade 1 winners, and Andrew Balding was not overstating it when he called the Hardwicke “a Group Two in name only.” The race was run at an honest gallop, and that tempo brought the closers into play. Giavellotto was one of them, while Goliath kept on for third after Christophe Soumillon lost his irons in the closing stages.

That is why the bigger question is not whether Giavellotto won, but what kind of win this was. If the setup was ideal and the race simply fell apart for the front-runners, this will read as a perfect late-season strike. If not, it looked like something more important: a seasoned middle-distance horse, still dangerous when the pace is strong and the target is right. Botti called him a horse that has “taken us around the world,” and said the champion was “unbelievable.” On this evidence, that description still fits. The Hardwicke did not just give Giavellotto another trophy. It put him back in the conversation.