At The Races | Stories

Horse Racing needs its greats.

Like any sport, there are champions every year; human and equine, there is always someone at the top.

This is the story of the bay colt with a white star that would become the greatest thoroughbred racehorse of the modern era, the human players in his life and the legacy he has left behind.

_{Photos by Bill Selwyn and GettyImages}

An arrangement between the breeding behemoths of Juddmonte and Coolmore meant that, each year, a group of Juddmonte mares visited Sadler’s Wells, and subsequently his sons, with the offspring shared between them. It was Juddmonte’s turn to have first pick in the year that Galileo and Kind produced what was described as an “outstanding yearling,” who was given the honorific name of Frankel and put into training with Sir Henry Cecil.

Frankel was Kind’s second foal. Her first, by Sadler’s Wells, would end up playing a purposeful part in the Frankel phenomenon, because, more than just a close relative, Bullet Train turned out to be a trusty sidekick, acting as Frankel’s pacemaker for much of his career. Explosive from day one, Frankel’s formative training was all about trying to keep a lid on the electricity and exuberance that charged through him, and, at home, a lot apparently went into teaching him to settle, the groundwork that was the gateway to greatness.

Sir Henry Cecil

At the peak of his powers, Henry Richard Amherst Cecil was the most successful trainer in Europe.

During a golden era that spanned the 1980s and 1990s, the dominance of his Warren Place stables was immense, producing a long-line of Classic winners that included four victories in the Derby, six successes in both the Oaks and 1000 Guineas and four triumphs in the St Leger.

Wolver Hollow, Bolkonski, Wollow, Kris, Le Moss, Ardross, Slip Anchor, Oh So Sharp, Reference Point, Diminuendo, Indian Skimmer, Old Vic, Belmez, Commander In Chief, Bosra Sham, Reams Of Verse, Ramruma, Oath, Royal Anthem – his list of champions grew almost with every season and the initials H.R.A.C on any saddle cloth was a stamp of guaranteed quality.

But at the dawn of the millennium, Cecil’s luck turned an unfortunate corner. Difficulties in his personal life, which included two failed marriages that were played out in public, were mirrored by a professional divorce from Sheikh Mohammed, the patron whose maroon and white silks had been carried to victory by many of those Warren Place greats.

Support from other owners dwindled too and inevitably success on the course started to dry up. In the early 2000s, the yard endured a six-year drought of Group 1 winners during which the numbers declined to the point where Cecil had to lease out empty boxes to other trainers in order to financially survive. In 2005, he saddled a mere 12 winners.

Against the odds, Cecil bounced back. In 2007, Light Shift provided him with an eighth triumph in the Oaks – a victory laced with emotion, Cecil appearing moved by the reaction from the crowd – and gradually the numbers started to climb as the trainer unearthed new gems, notably Champion Stakes and Eclipse winner Twice Over and high-class filly Midday, who provided the veteran handler with his first and only triumph at the Breeders’ Cup.

However, this steady improvement in the health of the yard contrasted with the trainer’s own physical deterioration. Cecil’s twin brother, David, had died of cancer in 2000 and six years later, Henry was diagnosed with the same disease in his stomach. Determined to continue the profession he loved, Cecil fought the illness through multiple bouts of chemotherapy. Then along came Frankel.

In many ways, Frankel’s awesome physique and powerful racecourse displays cruelly contrasted with the evident frailty of his trainer, particularly in Frankel’s final season when it was clear that Cecil’s illness was terminal.

Despite his aristocratic roots – he and his brother were raised in a Scottish castle – and flaws that he was always quick to acknowledge, Cecil’s self-deprecating charm drew widespread affection and admiration from across the sport, from members in Ascot’s Royal Enclosure to everyday punters in the betting shop.

Cecil, who was knighted in 2011 for his services to racing, believed that it was Frankel that kept him going through the pain of his illness. Undoubtedly, the horse provided a perfect final chapter in the great trainer’s career.

Prince Khalid Abdullah

The green, pink and white silks of Prince Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud – known in racing simply as Khalid Abdullah – are among the most recognisable colours worldwide thanks to an association with success that spans six decades.

A member of the Saudi Royal Family, Prince Khalid’s father was a half-brother to first monarch King Abdulaziz, he was the first Arab owner to really make an impact on horse racing and his breeding company, Juddmonte Farms, is one of the most powerful and prolific operations in the bloodstock world.

His first major success on the racecourse came with Known Fact, winner of the 1979 Middle Park Stakes and 1980 2000 Guineas, and more triumphs quickly followed; Rainbow Quest provided the first of six (to date) victories in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, followed soon after by the great Dancing Brave, who also captured the 2000 Guineas, Eclipse and King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes in a glorious summer in 1986 that was tarnished by an unlucky defeat in the Derby.

Four years later, Quest For Fame put things right at Epsom, whilst other stars to carry the Prince’s silks in that era included the brilliant miler Warning.

Part of the success might be attributed to the wide spread of trainers which Prince Khalid chose to train his horses; in the early 1990s his empire branched out to France, where Andre Fabre produced the likes of Zafonic and Toulon to score British Classic wins.

It was therefore inevitable that Henry Cecil should join the Prince’s roster of trainers in the early 1990s and, to no-one’s surprise, success was immediate. All At Sea provided the pairing with one of their early triumphs in the 1992 Musidora Stakes and, later that year, two star juveniles emerged in the shape of Tenby and Armiger, who netted Group 1 prizes in Longchamp’s Grand Criterium and Doncaster’s Futurity Stakes.

The pair topped the betting for the Derby that winter, but it was another Cecil/Abdullah colt, Commander In Chief that went on to Epsom success, demonstrating the trainer’s genius by winning the Blue Riband just six weeks after making his racecourse debut. Further successes followed throughout the 1990s and no doubt contributed to other Saudi Royals – notably Fahd Salman and Ahmed Salman – sending horses to be trained by Cecil.

As Cecil’s other owners left the yard in the early 2000s, Prince Khalid remained loyal to the trainer, at one stage he was responsible for 50% of the horses in Cecil’s care at Warren Place, but at that time Prince Khalid and Juddmonte had their eye on success in America, with the help another charismatic trainer – California-based Robert J “Bobby” Frankel.

Robert J Frankel

Brooklyn-born Robert J Frankel rose from life as a construction worker with a casual interest in gambling to becoming one of the most successful trainers in US racing history.

Despite starting out at around the same time as Henry Cecil – his first winner coming in 1966 - his career in the training ranks took longer to reach the top. Initially, Frankel earned a reputation as a shrewd trainer who that had the ability to improve horses bought cheaply in claiming races, but, eventually, better-quality horses came to his California base.

Having enjoyed successes in graded company in the 1970s and 1980s, Frankel enjoyed his first major career win when Pay The Butler won the 1988 Japan Cup, a victory that signalled his emergence as a top-tier trainer.

In 1991, Frankel sent out Marquetry, a colt formerly trained by Guy Harwood in the UK, to win the Hollywood Gold Cup in the Prince Khalid silks and that was the start of relationship that would see Frankel become Prince Khalid’s primary trainer in the US and help propel him to record-breaking heights in the early 2000s.

In 2001, Squirtle Squirt provided Frankel with his first Breeders’ Cup triumph when scoring a shock in the Sprint, but the trainer proved that was no fluke with four more Breeders’ Cup wins, saddling Starine and Intercontinental to win the Filly & Mare Turf in 2002 and 2005 respectively, Ginger Punch to land the 2007 Distaff and landing the biggest prize, the Classic, with Ghostzapper in 2004.

Perhaps the most satisfying of all his big-race triumphs, however, came when Empire Maker won the Belmont Stakes at Frankel’s old New York stomping ground in 2003, doing so in the green, pink and white of Prince Khalid. That win was the highlight of a year that saw him win a world record 25 Grade 1 races and become US Champion Trainer for the second consecutive season.

Tragically, Frankel’s career was cut short by leukaemia at the end of his most successful decade. When Robert J Frankel died in November 2009, the racing world mourned the passing of a man right at the top of his profession.

Santa Anita renamed the San Gorgonio Handicap, a race Frankel trained the winner of on eight occasions, as the Robert J Frankel Memorial Handicap.

Tom Queally

For much of Sir Henry Cecil’s training career, the role of stable jockey at Warren Place was the most prestigious in the business; past incumbents include Champion Jockeys Joe Mercer, Lester Piggott, Steve Cauthen, Pat Eddery and Kieren Fallon.

However, with the downturn in Cecil’s fortunes at the end of the 1990s, it was no longer possible for the yard to attract a top name after Richard Quinn left in 2004. For a while, Cecil relied on two stalwart riders connected to the stable in Ted Durcan and Willie Ryan, until in 2009 he formed a partnership with Irishman Tom Queally.

Son of a trainer, Waterford-born Queally had spent time with Aidan O’Brien early in his career but a lack of rides brought him to England, where he teamed up with legendary trainer/gambler Barney Curley. It didn’t take long for the move to pay dividends, with Queally becoming Champion Apprentice in 2004 with 66 wins from 748 rides.

The transition from top apprentice to fully-fledged professional is not an easy one to make and Queally had fewer rides in the following two seasons, but gradually his winning tally increased from 44 in 2005 to his first century in 2008.

For both men, the timing could not have been better. At the end of the 2008 season, Queally partnered Twice Over to finish second in the Champion Stakes (then run at Newmarket) and the following year the Cecil/Queally partnership teamed up to land big races successes with Twice Over going one better in the Champion Stakes and Midday smoothly landing the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

When Queally climbed aboard Frankel for his debut at Newmarket in August 2010, he already had a fair idea of what a top-class racehorse felt like. What he didn’t know was that Frankel would prove to be an even higher level.

Sandeep Gauravaram

Sandeep Gauravaram was Frankel’s groom throughout his time at Warren Place. A former jockey in India until a series of injuries forced him to quit race riding, Sandeep moved to Warren Place in 2006.

When Cecil gave him the opportunity to pick six yearlings from the crop of new arrivals in late 2009, Gauravaram chose Frankel. From that point on, he became the colt’s closest companion and his pastoral care would help to channel Frankel’s energy in the electric environment that his racecourse appearances quickly generated.

Shane Fetherstonhaugh

Much of the transformation of Frankel from the exuberant powerhouse that won the 2000 Guineas to the measured brilliance of his later triumphs can be attributed to his regular work rider, Shane Fetherstonhaugh.

A native of County Dublin, Fetherstonhaugh taught Frankel to relax at a more efficient racing pace, conserving his energy and enabling him to hit the line strongly, something which became a trademark of his wins in the second half of his career.

Hugely respected in Newmarket, Fetherstonhaugh had ridden 2005 Derby winner Motivator in work prior to his triumphs and also partnered Midday and Twice Over on the gallops.

Nothing, however, was quite like Frankel, whom he rode out in almost every piece of work for two years.

The secret was out by the time Frankel made his racecourse debut in a mile maiden at Newmarket in August 2010.

He was sent off a hot favourite, which he justified by a cosy half-a-length, at the expense of Nathaniel, whom he would also meet on his fourteenth and final appearance 26 months later in the Champion Stakes at Ascot, Nathaniel having himself won a King George and an Eclipse by then.

A routine romp at Doncaster was followed by the Royal Lodge and the moment in a movement that suggested something seismic was simmering, with a sweeping surge on the home turn that left his rivals for dead and onlookers in awe. In that Royal Lodge, in that sixth of the eight furlongs, the sight of a full-flight Frankel was something to behold, and the sound was a low rumble of an impending earthquake in the sport.

The 2010 Dewhurst Stakes was billed as arguably the greatest juvenile race ever, because the opposition to Frankel included the nine-length winner of the Middle Park, Dream Ahead, as well as Saamid, the unbeaten Godolphin colt whose nickname at home was ‘Pegasus.’

In the event, neither Dream Ahead nor Saamid brought their A-game, and Frankel himself was more workmanlike than ‘wow,’ but with mitigation, after a bump at the start revved him up prematurely, nonetheless well on top at the line. Rather than a breeze for Frankel, the Dewhurst was the relative calm before the radical storm.

With that fourth victory Frankel’s two-year-season ended; he was rated the joint-Champion juvenile in Europe alongside Dream Ahead and entered the winter as the hot favourite to give Cecil his third 2000 Guineas, a race the trainer hadn’t won for 35 years. Frankel was also Cecil’s sixth Champion two-year-old; two of his predecessors – Wollow and Reference Point – went on to Classic success at three, but the others – Diesis, High Estate and Be My Chief – all failed to reach the same level as older horses. Which way would Frankel go?

It was with a mixture of delirium and disbelief that course commentator Ian Bartlett, during the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, exclaimed that “at the bushes Frankel is FIFTEEN LENGTHS CLEAR!” The performance was the most dominant and destructive than many of us have ever seen, or will ever see, in a Classic.

In a surprising strategy, considering the controlled display in his prep race, Newbury’s Greenham Stakes, Frankel was let loose from the start in the Guineas, to make full use of his stride and speed, and some of the rival riders reportedly thought the dot in the distance was his pacemaker rather than Frankel himself.

To keep going, still six lengths clear at the line, after covering the first half of the one mile in approximately 47 seconds, akin to a classy sprinter, was truly something special. For many of us, the 2011 renewal of the 2000 Guineas is the go-to race for introducing and illustrating Frankel to the uninitiated, because it so outrageously defied the laws and logic of racing.

Even the greatest horses tend to meet with defeat at some time, as it’s a game of man and beast, of flesh and blood, and fallibility is a factor in all creatures, Frankel and small. The once that Frankel and Tom Queally were out of synch in their fourteen races together was the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot when, ridden with more restraint than in the Guineas, Queally asked Frankel to chase down the pacemaker a long way out, too soon in hindsight, which resulted in him scrambling home by less than a length from Zoffany, with Sir Henry Cecil’s camera-captured reaction at the line a stark reminder that a picture tells a thousand words, four of which were ‘got away with it.’

The Duel on the Downs, at Goodwood in July, was supposed to be the acid test for Frankel, up against a crack older miler in Canford Cliffs, who went off at 7/4, the shortest price any horse ever started against Frankel. A match turned into a mismatch, though, as Frankel blew him away, from the front, more measured and mature than ever before, the huge horsepower all on request, and push-button request at that.

That Sussex Stakes was something of a turning point in Frankel’s career, with a change in mechanics and therefore dynamics, the question evolving from how to funnel his awesome ability to how to flaunt it, now that he was growing up, and, perhaps as a consequence, it was announced even before his final three-year-old race that he’d be staying in training at four.

It was fitting that the inaugural British Champions Day at Ascot in 2011 was headlined by Frankel, whose finer-tuned engine was all the more apparent in the QEII as he dealt so clinically and convincingly with four other Group 1 winners amongst his six rivals and one ally, Bullet Train doing his job until Frankel went by in cruise control, on his way to a four-length win which added fuel to the fire of what the future might bring.

If Frankel’s first season was about managing him and his second about moulding him, the third was about maximising him, to turn potential into proof of him being the G.O.A.T. Greatest Of All Time.

Prior to his reappearance in the Lockinge Stakes, Frankel suffered an injury scare when he struck into himself on the gallops, missing ten days of work but making it to Newbury and showing all his class with a five-length defeat of Excelebration, nothing new in that, but the time was remarkable under the circumstances, hinting at the showstopper that would come a month later at Royal Ascot.

It takes a lot to win a Group 1 by a wide margin, but there are wide margins and then there’s the eleven lengths by which Frankel steamrollered the Queen Anne field, Excelebration – who’d never been more than five lengths in his wake in four previous encounters – paying a heavier price for daring to engage him earlier at Royal Ascot.

Such an exhilarating exhibition of galloping earned him a Timeform rating of 147, which translates as a simple statement that no horse they’ve assessed in their 75-year history would have beaten Frankel that day.

The World Thoroughbred Rankings likewise positioned Frankel at the very top of the tree, since the system was introduced in 1977, albeit after an ‘historical recalibration’ that marginally reduced the rating of Dancing Brave amongst others from the earlier years.

They say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, and, with everything done in his unparalleled power to cement his status as the all-time king of the milers, Frankel was set a new challenge, over a longer trip.

The horse to whom Frankel was most commonly compared, Brigadier Gerard, a star of the ‘seventies, met with his one and only defeat in the Benson & Hedges Gold Cup at York, the forerunner of the Juddmonte International, which was to be Frankel’s first foray beyond a mile.

It wasn’t only the extra 500-odd yards to cover at York that made it a new arena but also the different Gladiators awaiting him, principally St Nicholas Abbey, already a 4-time Group 1 winner at that stage.

There was always an inherent ebullience and enjoyment in his job that stopped short of ever thinking of Frankel as aloof or arrogant, but that day at York it was almost as if he knew he was playing a different game and decided to be disdainful, like he winked at St Nicholas Abbey and co at the two-furlong pole, when looking like he’d just joined in, before accelerating away to win by seven lengths.

Every story has an ending, but the stage was saturated for Frankel’s curtain call in the Champion Stakes at Ascot in late October 2012.

Heavy rainfall had put his participation in doubt, a fear that such gruelling ground would be like kryptonite to one with so fast and fluent an action. Consequently, it was the functional Frankel rather than the flashy Frankel that we got, but he smothered the proven mudlark (and seven-time Group 1 winner) Cirrus Des Aigles to put the finest full stop at the end of the most celebrated career in racing.

Diverse in audience and assessment, oxygenised as much by subjectivity as objectivity, racing is never just a numbers game, but numbers are fundamental to appraising racehorses, across nations or generations, and Frankel’s numbers speak for themselves.

Frankel is ranked number one by the world’s official handicappers, as well as by the independent handicappers at Timeform, and there’s a lot to be said for those interpretations, given the experience and expertise that goes into the calculations.

In winning all fourteen of his races, by an aggregate total of 76¼ lengths, Frankel defeated 25 individual Group 1 winners, not just eclipsing but, more often than not, embarrassing them

And therein lies the real reason, above all, why Frankel deserves the title of the greatest of all time: it wasn’t just his brilliance but the frequency with which he showed it.

In the years since Frankel retired, only seven horses on the planet have breached the 130 barrier on the handicapping scale that determines the World’s Best Racehorse rankings. Frankel reached that rating eight times in a row and hit as high a 140 for his last three virtuoso performances.

Some horses in history have shone sporadically, but none combined the brightness and heat that radiated from Frankel over several seasons, like a perpetual sun that energised and enriched the sport. That’s the dispassionate analysis of what made Frankel so special, but there was also what Frankel came to symbolise.

One glorious horse reflecting two giants of training, Frankel was named in honour of Bobby Frankel, the Hall of Fame American trainer, but his talent was even more of a tribute to the man who masterminded his development from uncut gem to polished diamond, Sir Henry Cecil.

The juxtaposition of the horse’s vitality and his trainer’s frailty, as Cecil battled against cancer, was so tragically striking and strikingly tragic that Frankel at times became the embodiment of the human spirit, of Cecil’s spirit. But make no mistake, Frankel needed Cecil every bit as much as Cecil needed Frankel, as it’s doubtful that any other trainer could have harnessed this hurricane as Cecil did, his departing gift to us, and a gift that kept on giving.

Retired immediately after his final victory in the Champion Stakes, Frankel moved to Banstead Manor Stud, less than five miles away from Warren Place, to start his new career as a Juddmonte Stallion in November 2012.

With a stallion fee set at £125,000 in his first year, Frankel’s book of 133 mares made incredible reading. If “breed the best to the best and hope for the best” was still the guiding principle in thoroughbred breeding, then this would certainly test the theory.

His matings included 38 Group or Grade 1 winners, notably Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Danedream, Breeders’ Cup champion Midday and Hong Kong Cup winner Alexander Goldrun.

The theory worked. Frankel’s first runner, a colt named Cunco, scored on his debut at Newbury in May 2016 and was the start of a new winning streak for his sire.

Over the summer his daughters Fair Eva and Queen Kindly won the Princess Margaret and Lowther Stakes respectively, colt Frankuus scored a Group 3 win in France and the year ended with Soul Stirring giving the stallion a first Group 1 winner when scoring in Japan.

Even better was to come in 2017, when three-year-old colt Cracksman emerged as one of the very best of his generation.

Still inexperienced when third in the Derby and second in the Irish Derby, Cracksman came of age in the Autumn and, most appropriately did so in the Champion Stakes at Ascot, producing a sensational performance to win by seven lengths – a victory officially rated the best performance in Europe that year.

Twelve months later, Cracksman repeated the trick in the Champion Stakes, this time signing off his career with another wide-margin win that saw earn the title of joint best racehorse in the world in 2018.

By that stage, Frankel’s status as a stallion was well-established and further successes, which include top level wins for Without Parole and classic victories with Soul Stirring in the Japanese Oaks and Logician in the St Leger, have further enhanced his reputation.

But Frankel’s legacy to racing is more than just a name among the small print of breeding details in racecards. His name will always be responsible for the wonderful ending that his great trainer’s life deserved and which, at times, looked unlikely.

While he remains very much full of life at stud, Frankel is also immortalised in bronze, with life-size statues at the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing & Sporting Art in Newmarket, Banstead Manor, York racecourse and Ascot – home to five of his wins and also host of British Champions Day, the event which his presence ensured was an instant success.