Champions Day 2012 Official Thread

[Old Vic]

No Thread


Ill start Fahey on his lot and Frankel

I'm looking forward to seeing Frankel in action in Saturday's QIPCO Champion Stakes and would love to see him win again.

People are pointing to the fact this is the most testing ground he's ever encountered but he's won on softish gong before and his action says he'll cope with it. He also shouldn't be under too much pressure through the race. He travels well and it's when they come off the bridle on heavy ground they tend to flounder. Hopefully he won't.

As I say I'd love to see him win again he's comfortably the best horse I've ever seen, he's a monster.

It was disappointing to have to retire Mayson earlier in the week. I felt he was getting better all the time and his work before France was very good. However he goes to an exceptional stud in Cheveley Park, I went round there the other day and was hugely impressed by the set-up. They'll give him every chance of making a top stallion and I think he will do just that.

Barefoot Lady also ran her final race for me in the EP Taylor Stakes at Woodbine. She could probably have done with them going a bit quicker but wasn't quite good enough on the day.

That said she's been a fantastic servant to ourselves and the owners, she never let us down. She'll head to the Goffs Sales and hopefully will make someone a fantastic broodmare.

We don't have our usual huge team in action on Saturday. Strange Magic is first up in the Bet totescoop6 Text Tote To 89660 Novice Stakesat Catterick. She's been a bit disappointing but we're dropping her back in trip as she shows plenty of speed. We need her to bounce back to form.

I'm a bit worried about Arctic Feeling's draw of four in the totescoop6 Catterick Dash as they could come up the stands' side in this ground. At least we know which side we'll be racing on though. He can get outpaced in his races before coming through in the closing stages. He was almost in front too soon the last day and could run well here if the draw doesn't beat him.

Arley Hall is my each-way Sky Bet charity bet in the Racing Post Form With totepool Mobile Claiming Stakes. This represents a drop in grade for her and she tries very hard so should run well.

I have two runners in the QIPCO Future Stars Apprentice Handicap at Ascot. Sir Reginald has a chance on Bunbury Cup form but I'd be a bit worried about Kaldoun Kingdom getting the trip on the heavy ground. I don't really want to pick between the two but Sir Reginald is handicapped to do some damage at the moment and he may be the one over seven furlongs.

[flatman]

With Ground as it is hard to get that excited...Champions Stakes Horse by Horse below

Bullet Train

Form figures may read F-F-F-F-F but that stands for Frankel, having been sacrificed as a pacemaker for his more illustrious stablemate (and three-parts brother) over the past year. The same will happen once again here so only back him if you think the other five runners will fail to complete.

Cirrus Des Aigles

Upset favourite backers when overhauling So You Think in this race 12 months ago and has since gone on to win two Group One races, most notably the Sheema Classic in Dubai. Visually impressive in the Prix Dollar on his return to action earlier this month, where he went through soft ground with a real flowing ease. Record on ground softer than good is exceptional and seems to really flourish on these big days.

Frankel

Took the step up to ten furlongs in his stride in the Juddmonte International at York and has done nothing wrong in his flawless 13-race career to date. This likely to be his final start before retiring to stud, and significant that connections chose this race as a farewell, however it's unlikely that they would have predicted desperately soft ground. That must be a major concern for those taking the short odds, but given his class, he's still likely to cope with it.

Master Of Hounds

Fine training decision to make his debut for the yard a winning one in the Topkapi Trophy in Turkey last month, but faces a much stiffer test today. Best form has come over that mile trip, and noticeable that his four runs over further have all resulted in defeat, so hard to see how trying to keep up with Frankel, Cirrus Des Aigles and Nathaniel will help him last home here.

Nathaniel

Possibly ridden too aggressively when a well-held fifth in this race 12 months ago but he'd had a tough three-year-old campaign in mitigation. Performances this year, including winning the Coral-Eclipse on his seasonal return, suggest he has a real place at the top level and he won't mind this becoming a slog as he stays 12 furlongs well. However, he's got six or seven lengths to find on Frankel on a strict formline through Farhh, and as a result might need to improve once again.

Pastorius

German raider who won the Deutsches Derby in July and has progressed since, with his length third to Danedream in the Grosser Preis Von Baden last month arguably a career-best. Like a lot of his compatriots, there's plenty of stamina in his pedigree and he seems to relish testing ground, so he's not one to discount out of hand.

Summary

Although a smaller field than at York, it seems fair to argue that this is a significantly stronger bunch of rivals for the wonderful Frankel, especially as conditions suit them more. To take on Sir Henry Cecil's wonderful colt on his final start seems like blasphemy, but it's hard to see how 10 furlongs in very testing ground will play to his strengths and instead the traitorous vote goes to CIRRUS DES AIGLES. Last-year's winner seems to be getting better with age and has put in his most impressive performances on heavy ground over this trip; he has nothing to lose, whereas Frankel has. Tactics could be a crucial part of this race, with the assumption that the stamina-laden Nathaniel could chase the pace-setting Bullet Train and that may hinder his chances of finishing the race with as much gusto as is required, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Pastorius outrun his odds if ridden patiently. It's worth remembering that three of the last six renewals have been won by foreign raiders, although a counter to that is that Sir Henry Cecil has won two of the other three recent runnings.

[flatman]

Donn...

So can Frankel be beaten on Saturday? Unlikely I’d say.

The debate that is currently raging about Frankel – and the debate which has been raging for quite some time – is whether or not he is the greatest racehorse of all time. We will never know if he is or if he isn’t, that’s the nature of these inter-generational things, you can never prove them beyond all doubt (is Messi a better player than Maradona or Pelé?), hence the sport of the debate. But even if he isn’t – and he may well be – he is at very least involved in the photo finish.

The figures. Frankel’s official rating of 140 leaves him just 1lb short of Dancing Brave, whose official rating of 141 (the highest in the history of official ratings), it has emerged, was couched as much in sentimentality as in hard facts. To put an official mark of 140 into context, Alleged was also rated 140, El Gran Senor was rated 138, Peintre Celebre was rated 137, Sea The Stars was rated 136.

Frankel’s Timeform rating of 147 is the highest ever awarded by the Halifax organisation. Sea-Bird has the second highest rating, 145, Brigadier Gerard is 144, Ribot is 142, Mill Reef is 141, Dancing Brave is 140. These are the horses that are the pillars of the sport of thoroughbred racing, and, according to Timeform, one of the most respected judges of racehorse ability in the world with their roots deeply embedded in history, Frankel towers above them.

As well as that, before the start of this season, the highest Racing Post Rating that Frankel recorded was 139. This year, in four runs he has posted ratings of 139, 142, 138 and 142 respectively. That evidence suggests that Frankel is still improving, and that is scary.

Cirrus Des Aigles is a top class horse, Nathaniel is a top class horse, Pastorius is a youngster with massive potential but, use whatever yardstick you want to use, Frankel is in a different league. On official ratings he is 10lb clear of Cirrus Des Aigles, 14lb clear of Nathaniel, 18lb clear of Pastorius. In reality, therefore, if you are expecting Frankel to get beaten in the Qipco Champion Stakes on Saturday, you are expecting that he will put up a performance that is a long way short of his ability.

Of course it’s possible that he will. Look for the chinks. The ground is one. It is almost certainly going to ride very soft at Ascot on Saturday now, especially on the round course. The last two and a half furlongs of the Champion Stakes will be run on the quick-draining straight track, but you will have to run through seven and a half furlongs of round-track soft ground before you get to the straight, and that is going to be taxing.

Frankel has only encountered genuinely soft ground once, that was on his racecourse debut in August 2010 in a Newmarket maiden, when he got home by a half a length from, quite coincidentally, Nathaniel. Many things have happened since August 2010, but one of them wasn’t Frankel racing on soft ground again.

Some say that he will improve for it, that he is by Galileo, that he has big feet and that, on soft ground, his margin of superiority will be even greater than it would be on fast ground. That may be so, but it may not be. His most potent weapon is his pace, and that will surely be blunted by soft ground. At best, it is a squelchy step into the relative unknown.

There is also the track. Frankel is four for four at Ascot, but his least impressive display since his racecourse debut was in the St James’s Palace in 2011, over the round mile. His QE2 and Queen Anne wins were gained over Ascot’s straight mile. The Champion Stakes is run on the ground course. Unlike Newmarket, they just don’t have a straight 10 furlongs at Ascot.

There is also the they-are-not-machines factor, as there always is when it comes to horses. Racehorses often under-perform, sometimes inexplicably. But Frankel has been pretty much like clockwork in all of his 13 runs. Once more will do it.

If you are not getting yourself along to Ascot on Saturday to see him in the flesh, whatever you are doing at 4.05, be sure to stop it and turn on the television, when you will see the greatest racehorse of all time race his last race. Probably.

[flatman]

Frankel: the full story of the world's greatest racehorse

By Brian Viner

Saturday, October 20, 2012

As Frankel faces his final race, Brian Viner talks to his trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, and others who know the world's greatest racehorse best.

FRANKEL. It is not a name that rolls off the tongue, like those of some other great thoroughbred racehorses, such as Nijinsky, Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard.

But in racing people it ignites sheer wonder, for Frankel is the superstar of Flat racing, not simply unbeaten in 13 races, but untouchable.

In monetary terms his potential to sire future champions makes him the most valuable single sporting commodity on the planet. It is said £100 million would not buy him.

At Ascot this afternoon Frankel and his jockey, Tom Queally, will attempt to extend their winning run to 14 races out of 14. Should they fail, the shock will radiate far beyond Berkshire, the more so as today’s big race, the Qipco Champion Stakes, is likely to be Frankel’s valediction. At four-years-old, the racehorse said by some to be the greatest ever foaled is on the verge of retirement.

If his owner, the billionaire Saudi businessman Prince Khalid Abdullah, does decide to call time on this epic chapter in Flat racing (as distinct from National Hunt, or jump racing), then when today’s meeting is over, Frankel will be driven back to the Warren Place stables in Newmarket, owned by his trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, and attention will turn to his forthcoming stud career, where his colossal value now lies. Some 120 brood mares a year will visit him, their owners paying at least £100,000 in the event of a foaling. That might go on for the best part of two decades.

No one could have foreseen all this on the day Frankel was foaled – February 11 2008 – at Banstead Manor stud near Newmarket, the breeding arm of Prince Khalid’s Juddmonte racing operation. True, the young bay colt had a marvellous lineage. His parents were the 2001 Derby winner, Galileo, and Kind, a mare who had won five consecutive races in 2004. But equine breeding is an inexact science.

The first signs that the progeny of Galileo and Kind might not only live up to expectations but exceed them emerged on a July morning in 2010, the day of Frankel’s first proper gallop, with Queally in the saddle, on the vast Limekilns training ground a couple of miles outside Newmarket. Among those watching was Prince Khalid’s racing manager, Lord Grimthorpe, whose job it is to liaise every day with the 14 trainers of the prince’s 250 horses worldwide, and report nightly to his patron. In a lifetime in racing, he said, he had never seen a spectacle like it. One moment Frankel was bunched up with his stable-mates, the next he was streaking away as if the others were hauling ploughs.

"I have to watch a lot of gallops and know how misleading it can be when you don’t know all the horses, weights or instructions," Lord Grimthorpe told the racing journalist Brough Scott. "But you could not mistake this. He was going so fast at the end we thought he would finish in Newmarket High Street. When we gathered afterwards, nobody said anything, and Queally was white as a sheet."

Henry Cecil knew better than anyone that impressive speed on the gallops is not always replicated on the track, yet his natural reticence hid a growing excitement at the possibilities for this still-unnamed colt. "I realised he was out of the ordinary about halfway through the year," Cecil told me in his oak-panelled study at Warren Place. "There was something very different about him."

The same might be said of the charismatic Cecil. He started training as an assistant to his elderly stepfather, Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, before striking out on his own in 1969. There followed 30 years of steady and sometimes spectacular success, before a precipitous, disastrous decline at the start of the new century in both his professional and personal fortunes. His beloved twin brother, David, died of cancer; his second marriage disintegrated; he even lost his driving licence for five years. Then he, too, was diagnosed with cancer, of the stomach, and all the while the yard produced fewer and fewer winners, hitting an all-time low in 2005, with only 12.

Many racehorse owners severed their ties with him, but Prince Khalid stayed loyal. The 75-year-old prince, the brother-in-law of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, had been involved in British racing since the 1970s, and with Cecil since 1990. They had forged a firm friendship. But business is still business. And although Cecil’s travails had compounded the affection in which he was held by the racing public, plenty felt he was a busted flush.

Happily, the yard returned to form. And little though anyone knew it on the day Prince Khalid sent him ‘the Galileo colt’, Cecil’s greatest triumphs were yet to come. For Lord Grimthorpe it is the comeback of all comebacks. "Henry’s gone from the Premier League to practically the Conference and back," he said, offering a football analogy. "It is one of the great sporting achievements."

Characteristically, Cecil plays down his talents. "I’m qualified to do nothing," he said. "I was the first student ever to fail Common Entrance into Eton from an Eton prep school. But I got a chance as my stepfather’s assistant. I’ve been very lucky.’

[flatman]

His luck remains variable. Cecil (69), is currently being treated for cancer for the second time. The weight has dropped off him, the beautifully cut suits hang limply, and, when we talked, a throat infection had reduced his voice to a hoarse whisper. "I look like death," he rasped, "and when people see me they’ll think I’m going to die tomorrow. But I’m not."

Chemotherapy, he assured me, was doing its job. He would get better. All the same, his illness adds poignancy to Frankel’s success. The horse appears to have intensified Cecil’s already fierce will to live.

"I love life," said Cecil, whose staccato sentences have more to do with his patrician background than his ill-health. "I’ve always been a winner. I’ve had bad times - personal or financial, no horses, bad years - but I don’t like being an also-ran. I have responsibilities. I’m married again. And I’m very determined that I have to be there for Frankel. So he has helped to keep me going."

Three months after his first gallop at Limekilns, the horse, by now named Frankel (after Bobby Frankel, one of America’s most successful trainers, who trained many winners for Prince Khalid, and who died of leukaemia in 2009), demonstrated his abilities where it really mattered, at Ascot. The Royal Lodge Stakes was Frankel’s third race, but the first in which he obliterated top-class opposition, winning by 10 lengths and pulling clear of the others ‘like a greyhound that had just slipped its leash’, according to Brough Scott.

It was becoming clear that the length of Frankel’s stride would be the main weapon in his armoury. Along with a formidable lung capacity, it helps him to accelerate more than once in a race. Even the finest racehorses can normally find only one extra gear; Frankel has two, sometimes three. The horses that can keep pace with him the first time he quickens have nothing left to give when he quickens again. And although he is not huge, he has unusually large feet, which even in a gallop he sets rather than stamps down, making him less reliant than most horses on the condition of the ground.

Following the Royal Lodge Stakes, the bookmakers, always a nose ahead of the betting fraternity, immediately slashed Frankel’s odds for the following year’s 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, the first of the Flat racing season’s so-called Classics (five prestigious races open only to three-year-olds).

On April 30 last year Frankel started the Guineas as the shortest-priced favourite since 1974, and went on to make his 1/2 odds look downright generous: his performance was simply one of the most dominant in the venerable race’s 200-year history. In the Queen Anne Stakes at Ascot this summer, which he started at odds of 1/10, Frankel won by 11 lengths, compelling racing correspondents to reach for new superlatives.

Of course it isn’t simply Frankel’s natural assets that propel him across the turf so much faster than the competition; he has been impeccably handled by Cecil and his devoted team at Warren Place, all of whom speak about him with great affection, and some as if he were human.

"He’s very much his own person," Cecil said. "He has a presence. It’s rather like people. Through my training career I’ve come across so many people I’d never otherwise have met, whether it be princes or successful businessmen. Most have an ambience about them, a lot of presence and panache. Good horses have the same thing."

Shane Featherstonhaugh, a 35-year-old Dubliner who rides Frankel daily in training, agrees. "He’s a big alpha male," he says. "He’s not one for petting." Like his colleagues, Featherstonhaugh tries not to think about Frankel’s eye-watering value. "They talk about hundreds of millions, but that has no meaning to me," he said. "I don’t understand those numbers."

What he does understand is riding, yet neither he, nor Cecil, nor anyone else, can make any racehorse run quicker than muscle and sinew allow. All they can do is minimise the dozens of imponderables that might obstruct its development.

"What people don’t sometimes understand," Lord Grimthorpe explained, "is just what it takes to get a horse to the races in good fettle once. To get him there 13 times, to get out of him the sort of performances that people crave, want and adore, is quite extraordinary. The combination of things that have to go right is not quite the Lottery… but it’s up there."

Among those charged with ensuring that the Lottery balls fall as favourably as possible is Frankel’s groom, Sandeep Gauravaram, a 32-year-old former jockey from Hyderabad. An engaging but shy man, he is still not comfortable with the attention that Frankel’s fame has brought his way. But, brought in to Cecil’s study to talk about the wonder horse, he became animated.

"He wants things done his way," he said. "We tried to move him to one of the bigger boxes, and he didn’t like it. He tried to jump out, he sulked, he wouldn’t eat." This was the stretch of stables known by staff as Millionaires’ Row. It is where Cecil has kept all his most prized horses, but not Frankel. He stayed in his swanky new surroundings for less than two days before being returned to the barn in the oldest, least salubrious part of the yard, where lorries come and go all day, and where, traditionally, the also-rans live.

Such willpower made Frankel tricky to handle early on in his career. As Cecil’s travelling head lad, responsible for getting horses to courses, and for their welfare once they are there, Michael McGowan had a few run-ins with the rising star. "As a two-year-old he was quite difficult," McGowan recalled. "But at three he became more settled, and now he’s the complete professional."

This was confirmed by the 29-year-old Waterford man whose happy destiny it is to be forever bracketed with Frankel in the record books. "He’s grown up no end," Tom Queally told me. "He’s so mature now, much more relaxed. Even as a three-year-old he could be very fiery, but pure class got him through. Now, I’ve amazing belief in him. Some horses are triers, but they’re normally low-grade animals. For a horse with so much at his disposal, he just gives you so much. I’ve ridden some very good horses, but when they get to the front they think they’ve done enough."

Henry Cecil has grown used to the claim that Frankel is the greatest racehorse of all time, and treats it with a mix of pride, gratitude and self-deprecation. "Good horses help make successful trainers," he said, "and I’ve had a lot of champions. And I didn’t live in the days of Sceptre [the only horse to win four British Classics] in the early 1900s. So it’s very difficult to compare. But it would be wrong to say he isn’t the best horse there’s ever been… because he could be."

Cecil admitted that there will be a tear in his eye on the day Frankel leaves the yard. "I may be training for 30 more years," he said – with a wry smile, as if daring me to contradict him – "but it’s very unlikely that I’ll get another one like that."