HOW ‘GREAT’ IS FRANKEL? The ever-controversial Daqman checks him out as having only 54% greatness, scoring 27 out of 50 in his point-by-point examination of style and content in his form and career.
Once up on a time there was a horse called Hyperbole. He (or she; can’t remember now) was a fairly modest animal, a hurdler, before your time: I recall a winning bet at Market Rasen. So it was all a bit ironic that the horse should carry that name.
But hyperbole, commonly ‘hype’, lives on in our sporting lives, encountered daily as, say, the ‘genius’ of Drogba or the ‘amazing’ Usain Bolt. We’ll have ‘fantastic’ records at the Olympics and, of course, Frankel is the ‘greatest horse since Sea Bird.’
Aspiration and success are the coexistent lymph and lifeblood of racing, as in any sport, but things are never what they seem and, just as the coin of Drogba’s great Chelsea goal was devalued by his immediately giving away a penalty to Bayern, so all ‘genius’ is flawed.
In my opinion, a thoroughbred (and that’s the word we need to use here) is ‘great’ when successfully following the Pattern laid down for breeding excellence, which was Guineas, Derby and St Leger and is now Guineas, Derby and King George or Arc, from Nijinsky to Sea The Stars.
Then there are categories. And there are freaks. Frankel Past veered in the minds of the hypers – the ‘gentleman of the Press’ – towards ‘freak’ in the first race or two of his career but, as he grew up, Frankel More Mature became categorized ‘greatest miler’. But does Frankel Of The Majestic Now deserve to be ‘all-time great?’
Consistency (10 points): You can hardly fault him on that score, after 10 wins out of 10, including Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes, Sussex Stakes, Queen Elizabeth 11 Stakes, and Lockinge in that order. But ‘what did he beat’?
Form (5): Monotonously, he has four times defeated Excelebration, whose only top-rank triumph was the Prix Du Moulin in Paris in September, a sub-standard Group 1, though the form worked out as we know it, since the runner-up, Rio De La Plata, had already been beaten by Canford Cliffs and Frankel.
Frankel’s other principal victims have included Dubawi Gold, whose only success at the top was the Group-2 Celebration Mile at Goodwood.
Dubawi Gold maintained a discreet distance behind Frankel last season, varying from six lengths in the Guineas to seven and threequarters in the Queen Elizabeth 11 Stakes.
Also runner-up to Frankel was Zoffany (in the St James’s Palace). Zoffany didn’t win at all last season: the best he could do was second in the Jean Prat but was then, successively, 12th, 8th and 9th in Group 1s.
The third horse behind Frankel and Zoffany in the St James’s Palace Stakes? Answer: Excelebration. Hardly telling us anything new, was it?
Canford Cliffs was the best horse Frankel ‘beat’ last season, and he was retired immediately afterwards. Was he ‘on the way out’ (for reasons of his own constitution, a ‘leg’) or was he, as the hypers would have it, ‘demolished by Frankel’ and there was no point in keeping him in training?
Ratings (4): That’s how hyperbolised history will see the defeat of Canford Cliffs but how does that square with the facts of the race in the ratings?
Excelebration went backwards in three seconds to Frankel, in that, between June 2011 and May 2012, he has lost successively by 2.25 lengths, 4 lengths and 5 lengths, yet his rating increased – towed along by Frankel – from 116 to 126.
Zoffany was rated 115 when Frankel beat him in June; Frankel is now on 138. Dubawi Gold was 101 when Frankel beat him in the Guineas; Frankel is now on 138.
Of course, say the ‘experts’, it’s because Frankel has improved out of all recognition. Really? But isn’t he still beating the same horses? The recent Lockinge 1-2-3 was Frankel, Excelebration, Dubawi Gold. No wonder he looks good!
Style (8): I’ll give him close on top marks for that. The words ‘straight’ and ‘gun barrel’ spring to mind. But that has to be qualified by the performance and the race. That famous Frankel ‘style’ would be crap if he were to try it in the King George; maybe it won’t even do if he runs in the Eclipse.
Versatility (0): And that, I’m afraid, is where the big duck-egg rolls in front of Frankel’s name: Frankel is a miler and is being campaigned as a miler.
Will he dare drop back a furlong and meet Black Caviar; will he dare step up two and meet the likes of I’ll Have Another (Kentucky Derby and Preakness)? That’s the world stage, and he has yet to play a single role on it. He’s a stay-at-home champion thus far.
How would he have fared against other great milers, like Goldikova, with all her Group 1s? All we know is that Canford Cliffs had beaten a veteran Goldikova a length in the Queen Anne before his defeat by Frankel when the curtain came down on his career at Goodwood.
A lot hinges on Canford’s demise that day. Yet he was officially retired ‘due to a leg injury sustained in the race,’ near-fore pastern damage ‘not conducive to racing at speed,’ according to the vet.
Verdict: As it stands, Frankel is a great miler, possibly one of the greatest for a singular reason: he’s raced only over 7f and 1m, largely against the same opposition, with the previous years pick now left the scene.
Remaining in his ‘category’ doesn’t stop him being dubbed ‘one of the great racehorses of all time’ but this is badly flawed by the form and contained by the lack of versatility.
Frankel may be a Usain Bolt but, should he meet a Zatopek or Gebraselassie, he would be reduced to a crawl after only part of the race and then to a standstill. It is in the nature of hyperbole that it all depends on where and when ’greatness’ happened, what you think you saw and what you want to believe.
DAQMAN’S BETS:
BET 3.8pts win STEELY (3.00 Lingfield)
BET 5.2pts win WHITBY JET (5.30 Lingfield)
BET 3.7pts win BELLAPAIS ABBEY (6.00 Sedgefield)
BET 3.1pts win (nap) HEALTH IS WEALTH (6.50 Worcester)
BET 5.1pts win KENT STREET (8.00 Sedgefield)
* Daqman’s selections are backed to win 20 points (unless otherwise stated) so, if you divide 20 by his stake, you know the Betdaq offer taken at the time of writing.
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