The Frankel Foals Watch Thread!

circadian

uxiant wrote: »

I know little about the biomechanics of horses but does Cracksman not have a strange action too? Looks quite awkward and uncoordinated to me but obviously it doesn't stop him running extremely quickly.

Looks like a huge stride until the final sprint, can fairly move when he gets going.

tryfix

uxiant wrote: »

I know little about the biomechanics of horses but does Cracksman not have a strange action too? Looks quite awkward and uncoordinated to me but obviously it doesn't stop him running extremely quickly.

I no expert either but I think Cracksman's action is quite normal. It's just that he had a high knee action compared to the straight knee flowing action that makes some other horses float over the ground. You'll see plenty of horse like him with bent knees apparently grabbing the ground as they gallop while others extend their leg below the knee out into a perfectly straight line. The optics aren't great but it doesn't hinder him at all and his action is probably best suited to softer going.

antietam

Most overrated horse in history by the anti Irish [Time Form] as they have a serious agenda based on the fact they never ever mentioned the plane full of drugs and have been rewarded to register horses beyond belief aka 2k Guineas win by Frankel, staggering as they the own the breeding rights.Frankel is ordinary based on times taken Sea The Stars was 8L faster in absolute identical conditions.

uxiant

antietam wrote: »

Most overrated horse in history by the anti Irish [Time Form] as they have a serious agenda based on the fact they never ever mentioned the plane full of drugs and have been rewarded to register horses beyond belief aka 2k Guineas win by Frankel, staggering as they the own the breeding rights.Frankel is ordinary based on times taken Sea The Stars was 8L faster in absolute identical conditions.

Frankel ran the first 5/6f of the Guineas at sprinter speed and finished slow. If he ran the first part of the race more efficiently he would have almost certainly ran a quicker time.

The times of the other races on the 2011 Guineas card were 4.36 slower than standard on average. On the 2009 Guineas card times were 2.62 slower than standard on average. This suggests Frankel ran his Guineas in slower conditions too.

That's why you can't compare times without context. Race pace and conditions are going to massively influence the overall time.

Clique

antietam wrote: »

Most overrated horse in history by the anti Irish [Time Form] as they have a serious agenda based on the fact they never ever mentioned the plane full of drugs and have been rewarded to register horses beyond belief aka 2k Guineas win by Frankel, staggering as they the own the breeding rights.Frankel is ordinary based on times taken Sea The Stars was 8L faster in absolute identical conditions.

Jesus :rolleyes:

Loved both horses and enjoyed them. Incomparable by the difference in how each finished off their races. Frankel kicked on and lòoked visually more impressive but STS just done enough. That comment though is ridiculous

antietam

uxiant wrote: »

Frankel ran the first 5/6f of the Guineas at sprinter speed and finished slow. If he ran the first part of the race more efficiently he would have almost certainly ran a quicker time.

The times of the other races on the 2011 Guineas card were 4.36 slower than standard on average. On the 2009 Guineas card times were 2.62 slower than standard on average. This suggests Frankel ran his Guineas in slower conditions too.

That's why you can't compare times without context. Race pace and conditions are going to massively influence the overall time.

If you want fact on 2k I will give you fact,very slow time based on what he was against and his sectionals were poor for the last 2f.HE BEAT NOTHING in 2K as form has shown,please prove me wrong [based on absolute fact].How can a horse beating a 101 be rated 10lbs above a horse who beat a 115 going away ,MY GOD.

antietam

uxiant wrote: »

Frankel ran the first 5/6f of the Guineas at sprinter speed and finished slow. If he ran the first part of the race more efficiently he would have almost certainly ran a quicker time.

The times of the other races on the 2011 Guineas card were 4.36 slower than standard on average. On the 2009 Guineas card times were 2.62 slower than standard on average. This suggests Frankel ran his Guineas in slower conditions too.

That's why you can't compare times without context. Race pace and conditions are going to massively influence the overall time.

Frankel is not about fractions he is serious hype based on times and imo a dud a stud based on the ultimate mares he has had,A ****ING DUD based on return to value.

antietam

antietam wrote: »

If you want fact on 2k I will give you fact,very slow time based on what he was against and his sectionals were poor for the last 2f.

That's exactly what he said isn't it? The point being that he won and won well despite running free and the sectionals being all wrong.

But you are right, he was a joke of a horse and it's all hype, he never beat anything and he's been a flop at stud. Your 'facts' have helped us all see the light.

tryfix

O'Brien's the man for training the Frankels. Rostropovich joins Nelson to become both 2yo and 3yo group winners. Not so sure what's his suitable trip, with a DI of 1.07 he reminds me of a previous O'Brien Dee Stakes winner Magical who was more of a miler than anything else, even though he did win a Breeders Cup Turf at 1m 4f.

Rostropovich's win is also a good one for Nelson's Derby chances as it enhances the probability that O'Brien has found a way to keep his Frankel's improving with age. I think that basically he treats them as if they were Galileo's which is basically what they are, well the ones O'Brien trains are. O'Brien is very likely to deliver a Classic winning Frankel as all Coolmore seem to have to do is use their breeding rights to Frankel to send some of their proven high class broodmares to him. Sending You'resothrilling the dam of Gleneagles, Happily, Marvelous etc would seem like a good bet to produce a Gp 1 winner.

Eminent makes his return tomorrow in the Huxley at Chester, he's unlikely to find a softer Gp2 this year.

Francie Barrett

Eminent was beyond awful there.

tryfix

Francie Barrett wrote: »

Eminent was beyond awful there.

Even before the race the commentators were saying that he didn't look right and they were very cool on his chances. He blew before the race. Looks like the trainer underestimated how much work he needed to get into him before he hit the track.

Fraankus too was very stubborn before they have up trying to get him into the stalls. It's not easy to train these Frankels.

antietam

uxiant wrote: »

Frankel ran the first 5/6f of the Guineas at sprinter speed and finished slow. If he ran the first part of the race more efficiently he would have almost certainly ran a quicker time.

The times of the other races on the 2011 Guineas card were 4.36 slower than standard on average. On the 2009 Guineas card times were 2.62 slower than standard on average. This suggests Frankel ran his Guineas in slower conditions too.

That's why you can't compare times without context. Race pace and conditions are going to massively influence the overall time.

Based on fact rather than [IF] his times were slow.Sea The Stars was far quicker every single winning fraction based on times/going/wind speed identical suggest Sea The Stars was 8L quicker.Please explain how Frankel who beat a 101 and Sea The Stars beat a 114 was rated and yet the clowns at Racing Post [anti Irish] rate Frankel 16 LBS BETTER ON THAT RUN ALONE.As I've been served with legal action with regard this matter please refer to fact.

diomed

But he was trained by Sir Henry Cecil.

STB.

antietam wrote: »

As I've been served with legal action with regard this matter please refer to fact.

You've been what!

Anyhow Timerform have him at 147, highest rated of all time.

Outstanding ratings for 3+ begin @ 140. The calculation is based on the merit of the horse expressed in pounds and is arrived at by careful examination of its running against other horses using a scale of weight for distance beaten which ranges from around 3 lb a length at five furlongs and 2 lb a length at a mile and a quarter to 1 lb a length at two miles.

Me. I think Dancing Brave has got short changed off 140 but hey everyones got an opinion.

diomed

Handicapping is opinion.
I think Dancing Brave was rated 140 because the official handicapper (Geoffrey Freer?) was retiring and people wanted him to go out with a big horse, and Dancing Brave got a 140.

Sea The Stars (3yo) ran the International Stakes on good/firm in 2m 5.29s (fast 1.71s)
Looking at the Racing Post page for the horse the OR goes from 124 to 133 (up 9), and the RPR goes from 135 to 129 (down 6).

Frankel (4yo) ran the International Stakes on good/firm in 2m 6.59s (fast 0.41s).
Looking at the Racing Post page for the horse the OR goes from 140 to 140 (same), and the RPR goes from 138 to 143 (up 5).

On the same ground one horse runs the race 1.30s faster than the other
The slower horse comes out of the race with OR 140 and RPR 143.
The faster horse comes out of the race with OR 133 and RPR 129.


Frankel
slow by 7.49s
slow by 2.33s
slow by 2.73s
slow by 3.43s
slow by 2.50s
slow by 2.30s
slow by 0.24s
slow by 1.27s
slow by 0.85s
slow by 2.74s
fast by 0.75s
slow by 1.36s
fast by 0.41s
slow by 5.92s

Sea The Stars
slow by 3.77s (4th)
slow by 9.90s
slow by 6.30s
slow by 0.88s
slow by 2.24s
fast by 2.10s
fast by 1.71s
slow by 1.40s
fast by 4.20s

diomed

diomed wrote: »

Sea The Stars (3yo) ran the International Stakes on good/firm in 2m 5.29s (fast 1.71s)
Looking at the Racing Post page for the horse the OR goes from 124 to 133 (up 9), and the RPR goes from 135 to 129 (down 6).

Frankel (4yo) ran the International Stakes on good/firm in 2m 6.59s (fast 0.41s).
Looking at the Racing Post page for the horse the OR goes from 140 to 140 (same), and the RPR goes from 138 to 143 (up 5).

On the same ground one horse runs the race 1.30s faster than the other
The slower horse comes out of the race with OR 140 and RPR 143.
The faster horse comes out of the race with OR 133 and RPR 129.

Pretty sure handicappers don't look at times and never have, so not sure why any of this is relevant?

Frankel carried 9-5 in the Juddmonte, STS 8-11. This is basic stuff.

Horses improve from 3 to 4 (hence the weight allowance) which is one of the reasons that Frankel ended up with the higher rating. The other is the obvious one that he won his races by wide margins which handicappers are always going to reward. 7L in the Juddmonte to a very strong field. STS by one length from Mastercraftsman his only real opponent (he scared them off so fair enough).

A silly argument. Nobody here or anywhere would ever say STS was anything other than a wonderful racehorse. He basically did everything the thoroughbred is designed to do.

But for some reason there exists a small community who are everywhere on the internet who can't seem to resist telling the world that Frankel was ordinary.

kiers47

Deleted User wrote: »

Pretty sure handicappers don't look at times and never have, so not sure why any of this is relevant?

Frankel carried 9-5 in the Juddmonte, STS 8-11. This is basic stuff.

Horses improve from 3 to 4 (hence the weight allowance) which is one of the reasons that Frankel ended up with the higher rating. The other is the obvious one that he won his races by wide margins which handicappers are always going to reward. 7L in the Juddmonte to a very strong field. STS by one length from Mastercraftsman his only real opponent (he scared them off so fair enough).

A silly argument. Nobody here or anywhere would ever say STS was anything other than a wonderful racehorse. He basically did everything the thoroughbred is designed to do.

But for some reason there exists a small community who are everywhere on the internet who can't seem to resist telling the world that Frankel was ordinary.

Exactly this. They were both exceptional racehorses. I dont really get the bashing myself?

There is something about seeing a horse racing at 3 and 4 that is the pinnacle for me. Frankel was better imo but this is only due to the fact that we saw him at 4 and he was even better at 4.
STS may have surpassed him but we will never know i guess.

diomed

Deleted User wrote: »

Pretty sure handicappers don't look at times and never have, so not sure why any of this is relevant?
Frankel carried 9-5 in the Juddmonte, STS 8-11. This is basic stuff.

This is also basic stuff. I posted that one was a 3yo and one was a 4yo.
Handicappers do look at time.
When I was doing computerised handicapping for myself on Irish flat racing in the 1990s THE BASIC STUFF was to compare all races on the card to each other.
And other basic stuff was to work out the standard time for each track at every distance, and on every going over a period of a numbver of years using a large number of races at each distance..
If one winner at a mile is 5 seconds outside standard, and two other races on the card at a mile equal standard, and the other races on the card are very close to standard you can assume that the race 5 seconds worse that standard was falsely run.

That is why race time is relevant.

kiers47

diomed wrote: »

This is also basic stuff. I posted that one was a 3yo and one was a 4yo.
Handicappers do look at time.
When I was doing computerised handicapping for myself on Irish flat racing in the 1990s THE BASIC STUFF was to compare all races on the card to each other.
And other basic stuff was to work out the standard time for each track at every distance, and on every going over a period of a numbver of years using a large number of races at each distance..
If one winner at a mile is 5 seconds outside standard, and two other races on the card at a mile equal standard, and the other races on the card are very close to standard you can assume that the race 5 seconds worse that standard was falsely run.

That is why race time is relevant.

It is definitely relevant.

I think where Orinoco is going with his point is that comparing times of races that are not on the same day never mid a few years apart is definitely not a good approach in itself.
As you said comparing times to races run on the same day is the most accurate guide. Especially if you have some fairly decent handicaps where you can be sure certain horses are running there races.

Also going is a more intricate thing than just Firm/Good/Soft etc... So having standard times while good it can be debunked to a certain extent. There is also stuff like tail and head winds. Track biases, Speed biases etc...

I wouldnt be even close to an expert on time and its not something i use at all that much. Although i would read a fair bit of Simon Rowlands stuff(Top notch material) but it is almost impossible to compare times of different generations to any degree of accuracy. In my opinion that is.

diomed

I wouldn't crib Frankel's time in the 2000 Guineas as I think that was into a breeze.
But an indication of the hype was the commentator calling him 15 lengths clear which was obviously not true.
Frankel beat Excelebration and Farhh a number of times.
If he was so good why did he not race in Ireland and France?
I find it difficult to remember a horse who hardly went outside a few racecourses, in his case almost always Newmarket, Newbury, Goodwood, Ascot.

Goldikova, winner of 14 Group 1 races, was around at that time yet Frankel never raced against her.

kiers47

diomed wrote: »

I wouldn't crib Frankel's time in the 2000 Guineas as I think that was into a breeze.
But an indication of the hype was the commentator calling him 15 lengths clear which was obviously not true.
Frankel beat Excelebration and Farhh a number of times.
If he was so good why did he not race in Ireland and France?
I find it difficult to remember a horse who hardly went outside a few racecourses, in his case almost always Newmarket, Newbury, Goodwood, Ascot.

Goldikova, winner of 14 Group 1 races, was around at that time yet Frankel never raced against her.

Canford Cliffs beat Goldikova in the Queen Anne comfortably and and Frankel smashed CC a month later. I doubt we would have learned anything if they had met. She also barely beat Cirrus Des Aigles that year who was also comfortably beaten by Frankel.
It would have been good to see of course but im not sure it would have worked out to differently for him.

They certainly wrapped him up a bit. But its fairly understandable him being an unbeaten classic winning Galileo Colt out of a good Danehill mare. Who had won plenty of good races.

diomed

kiers47 wrote: »

Canford Cliffs beat Goldikova in the Queen Anne comfortably and and Frankel smashed CC a month later. I doubt we would have learned anything if they had met. She also barely beat Cirrus Des Aigles that year who was also comfortably beaten by Frankel.

Well now ...
Canford Cliffs beats Goldikova 1 length she was "eased near finish".
Frankel beat Canford Cliffs by 5 lengths but from memory Canford Cliffs finished lame and never raced again.

Goldikova beat Cirrus Des Aigles a neck on 22/05/11 and Frankel beat Cirrus Des Aigles 1 3/4 lengths on 20/10/12 and I wouldn't say Frankel won comfortably.

danganabu

diomed wrote: »

Well now ...
Canford Cliffs beats Goldikova 1 length she was "eased near finish".
Frankel beat Canford Cliffs by 5 lengths but from memory Canford Cliffs finished lame and never raced again.

Goldikova beat Cirrus Des Aigles a neck on 22/05/11 and Frankel beat Cirrus Des Aigles 1 3/4 lengths on 20/10/12 and I wouldn't say Frankel won comfortably.

Forget the winning distance and look at the race again, it was as comfortable as you can get the offical race comments were ;

Took keen hold, made all, shaken up and quickened clear over 1f out, unchallenged, impressive

and

Tracked winner, pushed along over 2f out, outpaced and no chance over 1f out, well beaten when hung badly left final furlong

diomed

danganabu wrote: »

Forget the winning distance and look at the race again, it was as comfortable as you can get the offical race comments were ;

Took keen hold, made all, shaken up and quickened clear over 1f out, unchallenged, impressive

and

Tracked winner, pushed along over 2f out, outpaced and no chance over 1f out, well beaten when hung badly left final furlong

I read
"Started slowly, recovered into 4th after 3f, brought wide and progress over 2f out, cruised up to lead over 1f out, shaken up to assert final furlong"

diomed

I think when you are replying to my comments about Frankel's Champion Stakes win you should not use the English 2000 Guineas in running comments to prove your point. :pac:

danganabu

diomed wrote: »

I think when you are replying to my comments about Frankel's Champion Stakes win you should not use the English 2000 Guineas in running comments to prove your point. :pac:

Lol I was actually quoting from the Sussex Stakes when he beat Canford Cliffs, I have no idea why Dont mind me, I had a rough weekend!!

diomed

I think a bit of banter and different opinions are no harm.
Frankel was a good horse. I just wanted to see him do more that beat the same dopes every race.

Francie Barrett

diomed wrote: »

If he was so good why did he not race in Ireland and France?
I find it difficult to remember a horse who hardly went outside a few racecourses, in his case almost always Newmarket, Newbury, Goodwood, Ascot.

They were afraid of tarnishing a winning record and in hindsight and certainly commercially, it was the correct decision.

Frankel was clearly a good horse, but it's reputation as being a super sire is ridiculously oversold. Sea The Stars do more than Frankel ever did and at as a sire it had it's first Derby winner at the same age that Frankel is at now, and Frankel certainly won't have a Derby winner this year.

kiers47

Francie Barrett wrote: »

They were afraid of tarnishing a winning record and in hindsight and certainly commercially, it was the correct decision.

Frankel was clearly a good horse, but it's reputation as being a super sire is ridiculously oversold. Sea The Stars do more than Frankel ever did and at as a sire it had it's first Derby winner at the same age that Frankel is at now, and Frankel certainly won't have a Derby winner this year.

While agree with you for the most part. I think our gauging of good Sires has been a little tarnished by Galileo and Sadlers Wells.

Sea the Stars is certainly doing a bit better but hardly streets ahead and he is also getting a great quality of mare like Frankel. It also must be said that Frankel has produced a great horse in cracksman who would have definitely won the derby had it been run a month later. Superior to anything sea the stars has produced.

A few comments on various topics:

STS isn't 'certainly doing a bit better' than Frankel at stud. Check this link. These things are measured. Last year Frankel was 6th in all sires standing in Europe by global earnings. From 2 crops. STS was 8th from 5 crops.

My actual opinion on Frankel as a sire is that it is quite obviously too soon to tell. I was of the opinion he would have a big year this year and he still might, but I would not be so sure right now. However the common enough opinion that he has been ordinary and has flopped or whatever is obviously not true. There are facts relating to all these things and I am surprised more people don't look them up, racing is a global industry so the idea that a sire is measured on whether one of their first progeny won one of 'our' classics is pretty narrow-minded.

On Frankel as a horse there seems to be a weird belief that there is something wrong with his trainer choosing his races and plotting his career with care. Any decent trainer does that. There is a pattern for milers in England and he followed it, going up to 10f later in his career. Cecil was always very open about his running plans and he stuck to them. He didn't dodge a single horse in his life, he dodged races that his trainer believed would not suit him. Like, duh. That's the trainer doing his job. It's laughable to crab him for that.

As a side note to that point, given his running plans were there for all to see, you would think every other owner or trainer in europe would be desperate to take a free shot at this over-hyped horse and secure a sky-high rating, a huge scalp and the associated stud fees to match. And yet that didn't happen. Either they didn't show up or they were well beaten.

The one opinion I do respect is the old-fashioned one that says a thoroughbred is supposed to run 1m4f and horses that don't can never be truly considered the absolute best. I don't necessarily agree but I respect the opinion if it is consistently held, I am old-fashioned too. However, I also know greatness when I see it and anyone who looks back at Frankel's career and arrives at 'he was a good horse' or similar really needs to check themselves.