Breeders' Cup: Frankel spurs debate over all-time greatest racehorses

“There he is,” said Teddy Grimthorpe, pointing in the direction of two horses cantering up the Warren Hill gallop. “He’s the one trailing.”

And there he was. Frankel. The Horse of Horses, perfection on the hoof, cantering along under his regular morning rider, Shane Fetherstonhaugh, at a middling pace behind his older half-brother, Bullet Train.

The pair of them were having a routine bit of exercise on a routine morning beneath the dramatic canopy of a late-summer Newmarket sky. There were no crowds, no television cameras, none of the trappings of Frankel’s widespread celebrity. Just Grimthorpe, who serves as Juddmonte Farm’s racing manager, and the Cecils – Henry and Jane – along with a couple of lucky American visitors who thought it would be cool to be able to say they saw the great horse in the flesh.

“He won’t knock your eye out,” we were warned, by more than one knowledgeable British racing friend. “But the more you look at him, the more you will understand.”

This was not hard to believe. No horse could ever be a physical match for the reputation assembled around Frankel. At that moment, about a month shy of what was likely to be his final race Oct. 20 in the Champion Stakes at Ascot, the 4-year-old Frankel was unbeaten in 13 starts over three seasons, nine of those victories in Group 1 events, including the last eight in a row. His Timeform number of 147 was the highest since the ratings began in 1948, and his Racing Post Rating was a more conservative but no less dizzying 142.

The British press, noteworthy for its descriptive excess, ran out of superlatives after Frankel’s 11-length victory last June in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot. It was, from all angles, his 4-year-old answer to the sensation of his wire-to-wire explosion to win the classic 2000 Guineas at Newmarket the year before.

“But this was not just Frankel’s finest performance,” wrote The Guardian’s Greg Wood after the Queen Anne. “It was possibly the best single performance by any horse, on any track, since three Arabian stallions were imported into Britain to found the Thoroughbred breed in the early years of the 18th century.”

Such giddy praise tends to be both contagious and off-putting. Since June the predictable backlash has bubbled up from contrarians intent on curbing fans’ hysteria and placing the colt in some kind of rational perspective. His six-length win in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood on Aug. 1, went the story, was little more than a paid workout, and to many it had become clear that keeping Frankel undefeated had become the point rather than testing him to the fullest extent of his potential.

Then came the Juddmonte International Stakes on Aug. 22. At just over 10 furlongs, the International would be Frankel’s first try beyond a mile. He won by seven, beating Breeders’ Cup Turf winner St Nicholas Abbey, among others, in a tour de force that inspired Marcus Townsend of the Daily Mail to write:

“The extra 2 1/2 furlongs Frankel raced over for the first time, which had asked questions about his stamina, merely provided 528 extra yards for the crowd to cheer him home.”

For all his considerable ability, Frankel has earned his matinee idol reputation based not only on what he has won and how often, but how he has done it. There is considerable sizzle to this steak.

“He’s the first horse in my experience of racing in Europe that has developed a truly significant following,” said the Racing Post’s Julian Muscat. “Last year the crowd for the International Stakes at York was 19,500. This year the crowd was 31,300.”