Frankel
Heartbreaker
What it’s like to ride against Frankel:
From half a mile out, it’s like having someone suck all the energy out of your own horse…. He kills off the opposition. He breaks hearts…. you’ll watch him go by and just lengthen away into the distance. It’s awesome.
Post time for the Champion Stakes on Saturday: 11:05 AM ET/4:05 PM BT.
Only the ground is a concern: “… if it’s heavy, we are in no man’s land.”
2:25 PM Addendum: Grimthorpe raises the possibility of scratching Frankel, depending on the course condition. Would that be it, then, for the colt? Or would a scratch open up the possibility of a Breeders’ Cup tilt? (Ever hopeful.) Tweets @corneliusracing: “don’t believe #Ascot run ‘hangs in the balance’ …”
10/20/12 Update: Frankel will definitely run.
AF (After Frankel)
Considering what’s ahead, post-Champions Day 2012:
Enthusiasts will have to return to the humdrum of an annual champion who was the best of his group but ultimately beatable on an off day and certainly no Frankel; a return to championship races which are open to more than one horse; to speculative punting instead of money-laundering on 1-20 shots, to a time of oligopoly instead of monopoly, and to a time when valid debates can be held over who is the ‘best’ horse in a given year.
Also an apt description of the America scene since November 6, 2010.
Frankel Gallops
Of course, the footage is not terrific and we don’t know much more than that Frankel is still alive and a bit faster than Midsummer Sun. Still, you have now seen as much as those gallop-watchers who fell out of bed at 5.30am, which is pretty satisfying. Plus, you get to watch it while glugging coffee and munching donuts, instead of being exposed to Siberian winds across the blasted heath.
The video:
More! Photos from the gallop.
This morning’s work went about as you’d expect: “Everything went very well, it was a good bit of work and we were all very happy. It’s so far, so good.”
Ten days until Frankel’s final start.
– – – – –
10/11/12 Addendum: How great is Frankel? “Watching Frankel do his thing is almost like watching a driver dominate a Formula 1 race, or Michael Johnson run the 400 meters.”
Odds and Ends
“IHA lives a life of comfort.” The Kentucky Derby winner at Big Red Farm (via).
Azeri, Ginger Punch, Lethal Heat, Moscow Burning, Stardom Bound … Kate Hunter on the Yoshida brothers’ starry broodmare band (PDF).
But the horse will tell us what he wants to do. “It’s an absolute crock. Frankel has been saying all year I can do what YOU want me to” (via).
It’s not about the surface. What Dullahan really wants is distance. Given his one-run style, this makes sense. It doesn’t raise his prospects in any of the three Breeders’ Cup races he might enter, though.
East vs. West, Sid Fernando, March 2012: “… it’s striking that even cheaper dirt tracks in the East have lower overall rates than most anything out West.” Hm.
Frankel to Champion Stakes
It’s odd, how the most likely news can be the most underwhelming.
This Frankel development feels a bit like the Mosses announcing Zenyatta would race in 2010, after she was given a retirement party post-Breeders’ Cup Classic win … and then outlining the same campaign she’d run in 2009.
Addendum: Speaking of Frankel, Zenyatta and what-could-have, Marcus Hersh tweets, “Paris would’ve been biggest racing moment since Zenyatta’s 2nd BC Classic.” Ascot is now wondering where everyone who wants tickets will sit.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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