Just How Good is Frankle?

One of the most stunning victories seen on a racecourse in the last decade came on 2000 Guineas day at Newmarket this year when Frankel destroyed the field in the style of a wonder horse, ultimately beating Dubawi Gold by 6 lengths.

That took his record to six wins from six runs having started favourite on each occasion. Those runs had given the impression that his appearance in the St James' Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot on the opening day of the meeting would be a lap of honour for Frankel, that didn't materialise and he eventually scrambled home by three quarters of a length from Zoffany, a horse he would have been expected to deal easily with. For a while, it looked like there could be an online horse racing betting upset as Zoffany closed the gap as the line approached.

So visually the performance at Royal Ascot was unimpressive and some analysts were disappointed with the display but by examining the sectional times recorded by Frankel we can see that the performance was better than it first appeared.

Rerouted, the pacemaker for Frankel set a frantic early pace which ultimately proved a little stronger than he should have set and resulted in Frankel chasing down the frenetic pace more quickly than expected and that resulted in his running the last three furlongs in ever increasing times. His splits for those last three furlongs resulting in times of 11.9sec, 12.9sec and 13.6 sec totalling 38.4sec, by comparison his split for the same section in last year's Royal Lodge Stakes (run at much more even pace) was 35.6sec, almost three seconds faster. That comparison shows that it was no surprise that those last two furlong splits were relatively slow.

Clearly that energy expenditure so early in the race made it very difficult for him to emulate his previous exploits but given that fact that he still managed to win marks him down as a special horse – most horses can maintain genuine acceleration for around two and half furlongs – the fact that Frankel did it so early in the race and still won underlines his merits. Fans of horseracing online certainly shouldn't write him off.

 Some critics suggested that Frankel was tiring at the finish but taking the pace and the way that the race was run suggests that there may be some truth in the suggestion by connections that he was merely idling.

 Certainly Dubawi Gold who finished six lengths behind him in the 2000 Guineas finished further back this time after trying to mix it with Frankel far earlier and that gives rise to the thought that Zoffany only got as near as he did as he was kept out of the early battles.

An important point to finish on is that he took an age to pull up, suggesting that he was far from tired and that Frankel is still worth a try over the 10F trip of York's Juddmonte International where he can be settled off the pace and then use his undoubted explosive speed up York's long home straight.