GET ON WITH IT FRANKEL! NO MORE THE ARTFUL DODGER: Daqman argues that Frankel should now take on the greats over a mile and a half. He wants to see Frankel in Paris, or he will be dubbed the ‘artful dodger’ who stuck to shorter distances and avoided a champions clash in the Arc.
THE NAP IS 8.2 AT RIPON: Daqman is on Orders at Epsom at 17.5 on BETDAQ morning offers and his nap at Ripon was a Master 8.2. Check them out in the orange now!
Let’s see the real Frankel at Longchamp. If he fails to go to Paris in October, it will always be said that, brilliant though he’s been, Frankel was the artful dodger.
The English and Irish Derbys and the Arc are still the kingmakers and, until the Sussex Stakes and the International, Frankel had tarnished his reputation by continuous assaults on the same mile target against the same horse.
Since then, that ‘same horse’, Excelebration, has won handsomely in his own right and Frankel has started continuous assaults on another sucker for his punch, Farrh.
But, in doing so, he’s stepped up a notch in collateral form and stepped up again by extending his distance to 10 furlongs, looking as though more furlongs and more foes would all come the same, fodder to the fabulous power in that stride of his.
But it is in the nature of competition that a Mohammad Ali does not shirk a Joe Frazier or he is forever a coward or at least the weaker man.
Frankel must take Camelot and Danedream the distance. And that distance is a mile-and-a-half in the Bois de Boulogne in October.
Ok, you don’t put a middleweight against a heavyweight but surely Frankel has fought his corner so successful that he can toe the line in any arena. Is that all Frankel is: a fast middleweight?
I wanted him to go for the Derby. I was probably wrong, in that a hallmark of his career has been his progress from the naïve Napoleon with his scorched-earth policy in the 2,000 Guineas to the merciless Attila who waits on his opponents and then slaughters them in a few strides.
The Derby came too soon (as it does for so many horses) but Frankel’s four-year-old season has been stupendous and to claim now that he is a specialist miler has already been proved a nonsense.
But you still must watch those ratings. All this talk of can he get to an official 141 (he’s already 142 in the Racing Post) and be a better horse than Dancing Brave.. that, too, is nonsense. Boys playing with sliderules.
These ratings people are nice enough chaps. They drop sticks one side of the bridge and dash to the other side to proclaim one is better than the other but wouldn’t my last-year’s stick have beaten this one?
The only yardstick my friends is competition. And the only competition worth its salt is good competition, tough competition, the best competition.
If Frankel is not allowed to try, he will still be that freak who never ran in the kingmaker races; that machine whose engine might have been the best but can be judged only on how the men with the sliderule rate him.
The main objection will be: ah, well you see, the Arc is a rough race, and we wouldn’t want to see him lose out in such circumstances.
The first answer is that Dancing Brave, Brigadier Gerard, Nijinsky, Man O’War, Secretariat.. all were beaten in their day but all are remembered as great horses. Like Ali they lost nothing in defeat and most came back to glory.
The second answer is that the Arc may be a rough race, and the Derby may be run on a track best suited to mountain bikes with a hill climb on a camber at the finish. But somehow they still produce the best, and rarely are the excuses proven valid.
Last year’s Arc was described in the Press as ‘muddling’, a ‘fiasco’, a ‘rough house’ and ‘the worst result for genuine form I have ever seen’ (cuttings available for inspection if required).
Yet just look at the subsequent form of the Arc’s first six home: the winner, Danedream, has won this year’s King George, Shareta won the Yorkshire Oaks, Snow Fairy the Jean Romanet, So You Think the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, St Nicholas Abbey the Coronation Cup and Meandre the Grand Prix de Saint-cloud.
Though they have franked the form time and again, these six horses are currently Racing Post rated 128, 120, 125, 129, 127 and 122 respectively. Yet Frankel is on142.
I’m a punter. And I want that rating tested. I want competition called races. I want a price. And, the truth is I would get competition, I would get a race, and I would probably get a price about Frankel if he ran against all, or most of, these horses, their ranks swelled by Nathaniel and Camelot.
Horses are for racing. And, whatever anyone tells you, racing is for betting. As I struggle today with animals officially rated at best around the 80 mark, I am seriously reminded of the fate of the punter at the hands of big business.
He only gets quality where it’s wanted in the pattern by the breeding industry, as these artful dodgers try to preserve their breed to get the best return from their progeny. May I remind them that only competition can give the breed true status and maintain the quality.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.2pts win and place ORDERS FROM ROME (2.50 Epsom)
BET 3.3pts win ELEGANT FLIGHT (3.55 Epsom)
BET 2.7pts win (nap) MASTER OF ARTS (4.15 Ripon)
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