last word Originally published in International Thoroughbred, September 2012 Written by Paul Haigh after Frankel’s victory in the Group 1 Juddmonte International, August 2012 Photography by the late Trevor Jones, supplied courtesy of www.racingfotos.com
We’re out of Superlatives
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ND NOW WHAT DO YOU SAY? How do you describe something like this when you’ve wasted all your superlatives on other stuff which now turns out to have been no better than very, very good? The C4 gang had a shot at it, announcing proudly towards the end of their programme that they’d thought of a new name for him which was “Frankelstein”. Well, it does manage to convey something of his “otherness” perhaps. But it isn’t original, being in fact the rather disrespectful nickname applied by certain US press men during his lifetime to the trainer after whom Frankel is named. And while Frankel the horse may indeed, in the sense the word is used to denote greatness in racing, be a monster, if not The Monster, he’s certainly nothing like the one Dr Frankenstein put together. That one, at least in the Boris Karloff version, had a bolt through its neck, a complexion that looked as though it had been stitched together by a trainee sail maker on work experience, and an alarming tendency to lurch. Frankel on the other hand (could this be just imagination because he’s so close to perfection in almost every other respect?) is about as beautiful a creature as has ever been put on earth. He has the chest of a bull and the elegance of a teenage gymnast. When he came back to the winners’ enclosure after the Juddmonte International his toes were twinkling like Fred Astaire’s. So what do you say about him now he’s shown the theorising was correct and that perhaps he really is even better at middle-distances than at a mile? The Yanks have got a song lyric that seems to fit at least a bit better than the other monster’s head. It starts: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord”. A few words about the race itself before someone starts calling for the nurse with the verbal incontinence pads. Frankel broke quite sluggishly and was settled by Tom Queally near the rear behind a fast pace set by
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Frankel is about as beautiful a creature as has ever been put on earth. He has the chest of a bull and the elegance of a teenage gymnast. When he came back to the winners’ enclosure after the Juddmonte International his toes were twinkling like Fred Astaire’s
two of the Ballydoyle pacemakers, Robin Hood and Windsor Castle, who had headed the great one’s normal lead horse, his half-brother Bullet Train. It was a sensible bid to defeat Frankel’s pace by finding some weakness in his stamina over a distance two and a half furlongs further than he’d ever raced before. It was obvious that they’d failed more than 3f from home, and not just that they’d burnt themselves out, but that their going off fast had stretched the two supposed main threats to the champion almost to the limit of their own resources. Tom Queally brought Frankel to the stands’ rail as the field fanned across the track, and as the leaders faltered, we were treated to the amazing sight of the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner St Nicholas Abbey being driven as hard two furlongs out as though he was in sight of the post, while Frankel went past him on the bridle. Frankel drew away as Frankel does, to win his record-breaking eighth consecutive Group 1 victory by 7l. His aggregate winning distance is now 75l. Godolphin’s Farrh tried hard without ever being able to give any hint that he might interfere with the victory procession, although he did manage to put his nose in front of the spent St. Nicholas Abbey on the line. Fourth, beaten a total 15l, was last year’s International winner and dual Champion Stakes winner, Twice Over, who only a couple of years ago ran a respectable third on his only non-turf outing to the great mare Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. So where does Frankel go from here? Britain’s leading bookmakers, reacting almost hysterically to what they’d seen, immediately announced that if it were decided that Frankel should step up another couple of furlongs for the Arc, they would be prepared to lay him at no better odds than 1/4. What does that say about his immense superiority over the probable Triple Crown winner Camelot, last year’s magnificent Arc winner Danedream, the Eclipse winner Nathaniel and the comeback queen Snow Fairy, not to mention the Japanese champion Orfevre? Some, forgetting perhaps that the Breeders’ Cup
