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Well worth watching and I suppose they couldn’t include everything but there were some very nice touches such as Frankel likes to bite, the scene with Carson and his ties, the head girl and the sketching of horses especially from his doctor which indicated Cecil had heard more than enough.
Noticeable omissions were the removal of his horses by Sheikh Mohammed in 1995 which played a significant role in his fortunes and how important the continued loyalty of Abdullah was which almost certainly kept his stable going.
I’ll always remember my day ay Newbury for the Lockinge.
Gosden had a look about him after the Dante that suggested he’d prevail and it is clear he has always wanted to run him.
I can’t see the Derby being run at a slow pace to suit a favourite who some think has stamina doubts but I see no reason why Jack Hobbs or Elm Park will reverse the form at Epsom.
Hughes had no choice over NOT as the horse is now owned by Godolphin who have their own jockeys.
I’d forgotten the boys in blue had acquired him, anyway makes a change for them to get one that then wins. He’s become only the third 2,000 winner to take the Lockinge.
NoT looks set to take on Toormore again in the Queen Anne, he’s also entered in the Eclipse so perhaps they don’t plan to keep him to a mile this year.
Golden Horn beat Storm The Stars Brig
I know so did Hans Holbein by further, which was the form line I was referring to and I did say it was as a 2yo over a mile so a tad tenuous.
Now he runs Golden Horn is the obvious choice and is 2-1 fav, all I’m saying is Hans Holbein at 14/1 is a good ew bet and will stay, not that he’ll beat Golden Horn.
A big field but on form Night of Thunder is the one to beat in this though Hughes has gone for Toormore, Custom Cut looks the most likely improver though the last time he tried G1 he was found wanting.
The Dante was certainly the best trial and the first three were a long way clear in a true run race with Golden Horn a very worthy winner. It seems his owner is convinced he’s a 10f horse while Gosden clearly would like to run him at Epsom and seems to think that track would suit him better than Jack Hobbs. Elm Park ran well but I can’t help feeling Balding looked a little disappointed despite saying he was pleased with the run, he either got tired on his first run or just isn’t as good as the Gosden pair. You can find holes in the pedigrees of all three of them if you are looking to with regard to getting 12f but Golden Horn looks the classiest 3yo colt to date.
One horse you can say on pedigree has no problems is Hans Holbein and there is a form line through Storm The Stars who beat Golden Horn, albeit over a mile as a 2yo. Anyway he looks AOB’s best chance and is a good ew bet.
Zawraq is a short price for Epsom but again you can find holes in his pedigree too and he has entries for the Irish 2,000 and the St James Palace which make you think connections are undecided.
Very, very sad news. He always struck me as very modest and amiable and I think most racing fans thought the same. I saw him in the parade ring at Newbury in May last year when Frankel ran in the Lockinge still as dapper as ever and with his trademark cigarette to hand. I’m so pleased Frankel gave him such a wonderful end to his extraordinary training career and life. His other great passion in life after racehorses was his rose garden and I’m sure there will be plenty of those at his funeral.
My view is C4 racing is on the whole not as good as it was before the recent changes. Fitzgerald is dire and Balding should have been put out to grass and God knows why they took them from the BBC as they were hopeless there. Luck is too wooden and one longs for the return of the Cat.
The UK system of running handicaps where, in effect, trainers and owners are rewarded for in one way or another disguising the true ability of their horse, surely encourages skullduggery of one kind or another.
BUT it’s the aspect of the simple fact that in order to win a handicap (and handicaps are a fundamentally central part of our racing architecture) it is necessary to run a horse who is now better than he was when assessed by the handicapper and the easy way to do that is to disguise his ability (in any one of a number of ways).
I’ve no doubt trainers do plot to win handicap races by getting their horse in at a favourable weight. However your premise that you can’t win one without doing this is flawed as if so no horse would win one carrying a high let alone top weight yet they do. You also ignore the fact that horses do actually improve and that improvement is not necessarily due to the trainer/jockey disgusing how good the horse is.
Who knows but I can’t criticize connections for not running him in it. However I do feel they should have found out just how versatile he was and stepped him up earlier at 3 and ran him in the KG at 4.
Just in case it has escaped some on here Jim Bolger owns 49% of Dawn Approach so he is hardly an innocent bystander in terms of where he runs unless of course the money he got for selling a majority share deprived him of any say in the matter. If it did and he was that bothered he shouldn’t have taken the money or at least voiced his concerns ahead of the Derby which he didn’t.
Although admitting Ruler Of The World has the potential to improve the BHA’s senior handicapper has given him a rating of 120 following his Derby victory, the lowest of any this century.
Dawn Approach ran a similar race to Tudor Minstrel in 1947, the highest rated miler prior to Frankel, he didn’t stay. He had fast blood in the very bottom section of his pedigree though he had more stayers than Dawn Approach in his genes. He pulled & didn’t settle, went back to a mile & was a successful racehorse & stallion.
I don’t think Dawn Approach was got at. Just ran as if it was a sprint; wonder how he’d do over 6 furlongs.I assume you mean Timeform ratings but the highest rated miler prior to Frankel was Brigadier Gerard.
Tudor Minstrel’s run in the Derby was quite different from Dawn Approach’s in that the former ran out of stamina in the straight but finished fourth. The latter’s chance at gone before they even went down the hill into Tattenham Corner. Tudor Minstrel was also subsequently beaten in the Eclipse proving he really didn’t stay beyond a mile, a distance he was imperious over, though breeding suggested he would. Perhaps Dawn Approach doesn’t stay beyond a mile but we really don’t know that from his run in the Derby.
We’ll never know if Dawn Approach gets a mile and a half as his antics yesterday meant he ruined any chance he had right from the off. Manning imo persisted far too long in trying to restrain/settle him and would have been better off letting him have his head, he could hardly have finished any further back.
Ruler Of The World looks a nice sort and while the rest were all quite close he may be one to improve further as he was unraced at 2.
So those who ‘Officially’ say
Frankel
is the Greatest of all time are just speculating too then ‘Brigadier’? Thats fine by me then.Glad we cleared that one up!
Actually all the official rating does is say he’s the best since those ratings were first compiled in 1977 and even that took a revision to be made to another horse. However any who suggest he is the greatest horse of all time are speculating because they have no knowledge on which to base such a claim.
My Grandfathers 98yr old now and he’s been a Racing fanatic all his life,when he speaks I listen,its called experience and it counts for everything in this life we lead,no matter what avenue we’re discussing.When he says ‘Frankels’ the best he’s seen then I’ll take his word for it.We can only speculate about what should/coulda/woulda happened had he been stepped up in trip but what we saw in the 2000gns was the mark of a Miler second to none………And thats coming from me! What my Dear Grandfather did say though was that
Tudor Minstrel
was the nearest thing he’d seen to
Frankel
as both had many similarities,one of which was a headstrong attitude which at the time would have caught ‘Frankel’ out in the Derby as it did ‘Tudor Minstrel’.
You and your grandfather and no doubt others who think Frankel is the greatest mile of all time is fine, that’s your opinion but it doesn’t make it a fact. The same thing applies to anyone who states any horse is the greatest miler or any other distance or the greatest racehorse of all time.
Silly thread title as it is impossible to say which horse was the greatest of all time over any distance and the posts seem to have very little to do with the title.
My opinion is Frankel along with Brigadier Gerard are the best milers I’ve ever seen race.
Nothing Silly about the thread title at all…..I think we’d all have to agree
Frankel
was the ‘Greatest Miler of all time’
Why would we all agree that as none of us have been around long enough to see every top class racehorse over a mile? For instance I never saw Tudor Minstrel race yet he was reckoned to be the best miler in 1947. You could go back even further than that if you like but it is ultimately impossible to compare such horses over not just decades but hundreds of years and that is why it is pointless to call any racehorse the best of all time.