The world’s top-rated galloper Frankel made it eleven wins from eleven races, by eleven lengths, when he soared to victory in the opening race of Royal Ascot 2012. The Gr1 Queen Anne Stakes forms a leg of the QIPCO British Champion Series.
The insensitivity of GBI in cutting the television feed to Tellytrack denied ecstatic racing fans across South Africa the benefit of wallowing in the post-race glory. But the shiver up the spine and the dizzy thrill of the adrenaline rush had already been felt by all.
We saw all the elevens and greatness on this Tuesday 19 June 2012. Of that there is no question!
This was a Gr1 field but they may as well have been ten kid’s ponies. Sir Henry Cecil’s superstar annihilated his opposition over the straight mile under regular jockey Tom Queally as the four-year-old produced a performance befitting his huge reputation and his prohibitive odds of 1-10.
The race worked out beautifully.
But he could have left the start ten minutes later and still beaten them. Led by his stablemate Bullet Train, Queally took up the running with three furlongs left, and within a few strides the contest was over as his old foe Excelebration, momentarily threatened before having his heart torn out as the machine powered away.
The 33-1 chance Side Glance ran third.
Both the winning trainer and jockey commented after the race that Frankel’s seventh Gr1 win was his peak performance to date.
Cecil said: “I’m not surprised but relieved, no horse is a certainty. He’s a great horse, he did exactly what I thought he would but he’s still improving.
“It looks like he’ll stay a mile and a quarter, he’s in the Eclipse, Sussex Stakes and Juddmonte, we’ll feel our way and he’ll tell me what to do.”
An overwhelmed Tom Queally added: “He settled and travelled, he’s amazing. That was his best performance, he ticked all the boxes and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
And Now For Saturday
With Frankel setting the tone for what can only be something of a thrilling anti-climax hereon in, Royal Ascot continues this week and reaches another crescendo on Saturday when the unbeaten Black Caviar sets out to record her 22nd straight win in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes.
The southern hemisphere’s fairer sex answer for Frankel, Black Caviar , will step out on the final day of Royal Ascot on Saturday, when the brilliant unbeaten Australian sprinter will show why she is the most famous horse to have raced in Australia since Phar Lap.
The 1930 Melbourne Cup winner became the hero of a country in the grip of the Great Depression, much like the economic ills facing the world today. Unlike Black Caviar he stayed all day, but like her his fame spread around the world, and it was not long before he was invited to run in what was then billed as the richest race in the world, at Agua Caliente in Tijuana. He won the race but died not long after in mysterious circumstances in California.
Black Caviar has also become a public idol and has acquired the status of a genuine sporting icon.
She has her own fan club, her own merchandising outlet, and recently put 30,000 on the gate at Morphettville in Adelaide, at meetings that would normally struggle to attract one-tenth of that attendance.
It has been shown that nine out of 10 people in any major Australian city have heard of Black Caviar.
Perhaps that explains why Black Caviar’s owners were lured into striking a six-figure deal with racing television company TVN and Racing Victoria, the sport’s controlling body in the state, for semi-exclusive access to the mare on her trip to Britain.
TVN editors will be putting together a television documentary of the Black Caviar story, placing heavy emphasis on her visit to Britain.
Peter Moody, the mare’s trainer, is making his fourth trip with a Royal Ascot contender, but he is adamant that winning here is not going to figure high on his list of personal achievements.
Moody is said to have favoured a campaign back in Australia with a trip to Hong Kong at the end of the season, but he has given in to the owners, who long held ambitions to come to Ascot.
Watch Black Caviar at 16h45 on Saturday on Tellytrack Dstv 232.
Far be it for me to rain on the parade of the spectacular Frankel, but by awarding him the highest ever rating of 147,Timeform immediately raises the perennial debate of who was the best.
Sea Bird II was given the previous highest of 145. The only time he was beaten in eight starts was in the Grand Critérium as a two-year-old when, shockingly ridden by Maurice Larraun (he never sat on him again). Yet there are those who believe that his second to his very good stable mate Grey Dawn in that race was one of his finest performances because of the ground made up in the last furlong.
Perhaps it was the nature of Frankel’s wins (the last by 11 lengths) which persuaded Timeform, because being unbeaten over 11 races is not unique, by any measure. Let’s see what he can do against Camelot!
Frankel has not won the Derby and the Arc in the same year, and while not wishing to be churlish, none of the horses he has beaten at this stage, will set the world on fire. But look at some of those who Sea Bird vanquished.
He raced three times at two, winning his first two, the Prix de Blaison at Chantilly the Critérium de Maisons-Laffitte both times beating Blabla (who won the Prix de Diane the following year). His third was the Grand Critérium. At three, Sea-Bird won all his five races contested. The Prix Greffulhe was won by three lengths. He next thrashed a very good Diatome in the Prix Lupin by six.
Sea Bird started as the 7/4 favourite in a field of twenty two for the 1965 Derby . He raced wide up to Tattenham Corner, until entering the straight, and in the words of a racing journalist “then moved easily up to take the lead on the bridle with Glennon sitting still as a statue”. Sea-Bird beat Meadow Court by two lengths and I Say was third. .Meadow Court subsequantly won the Irish Derby and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (then the richest race in England). The victory was described as “one of the best in living memory” It was breathtaking and memorable and in Rhodesia it took our minds off UDI. (Rhodesia had TV, unlike SA).
It was Sea Bird’s only outing in England. In July he ran in the Grand Prix de St Cloud, which he won, easing up by three lengths from classic winner Couroucou.. But it was the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victory which really set Sea Bird on his rightful pinnacle. Frankel has never faced and never will face a field of that strength. Apart from Meadow Court, it included Preakness winner Tom Rolfe, Prix Du Jockey Club winner, Reliance, Prix de Diane winner Blabla, Russian derby winner Anilin and Diatome, who would go on to win the Washington DC International.
Starting at 6/5, Sea Bird won easily by six lengths from Reliance. Five lengths further back in third was Diatome, fourth place went to the Oppenheimer stallion Free Ride, (the Oppenheimers won the July that year with King Willow), fifth was the Soviet runner Anilin, and sixth was Tom Rolfe.
In their definitive work, A Century of Champions, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Sea-Bird the greatest racehorse of the 20th century, one pound ahead of Secretariat, and two pounds ahead of Ribot and Brigadier Gerard. (Note these are all post war horses).
Frankel two pounds better than Sea Bird? For my money, not yet. Frankel is amazing and wonderful to watch in action but I am not convinced he is 2lbs better than Seas Bird II. If he is half as successful as Sea Bird II was at stud, he truly will then be among the greats!
I agree that it is still to early to start saying that Frankel is the best ever……what has he beat
Timeform has lost some of its creditability by rating Frankel 147 so early on this season. Frankel has beaten nothing of note (Excelebration is not a great miler by any definition) and his Queen Anne victory cannot compare to that of Sea Bird’s Arc. Sea Bird beat Reliance by 4.5 lengths and the latter in turn beat the rest of the field by a further 4 (note that these margins are not the official margins, but are more accurate than those margins). Sea Bird was ridden out by hands and feet only (and was eased up in the last 100 metres or so) and had he been whipped he would have made the winning distance at least 9-10 lengths.
Other questionable Timeform ratings are which are too low are Nijinsky 138, Peintre Celebre 137, Montjeu 137. Timeform ratings that are too high are Reference Point 139, Old Vic 136, Tudor Minstrel 144, Slip Anchor 136, etc.