This Saturday the colt will be in action for the final time this season in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot. He has been working well and is likely to start as a short-price favourite to extend his unbeaten run to nine.
His trainer Henry Cecil, a gentleman of the sport not prone to hyperbole, says this is the finest horse he has ever seen. The 68-year-old’s training career spans the reign of the sensational and tragic Shergar as well as the American Triple Crown-winning Secretariat, so his words are carefully considered.
Cecil knows his charge is the most exciting thing to happen to racing in some time. Frankel has no right notching up some of the times he does. When winning the mile-long Sussex Stakes in July he ran like a world class sprinter.
His effortless transition between seven furlongs and a mile trip is no less impressive than Bolt’s ability to switch from the 100m to the 200m and blow the competition away in both.
Frankel could have a Bolt-style impact on the popularity of horse racing among the masses if only the powers that be market his brilliance in the manner he deserves.
There is added interest at Ascot this weekend with the reintroduction of sectional timings. Similar to splits on the track, this will give punters a more accurate idea of how fast a horse is travelling at different stages in the race.
Aside from provoking the interest of increasingly statistic obsessed sports fans, the sectional timings will allow us to gauge just how fast Frankel is. Tweet