Sir Henry Cecil tells BBC Look East it has been an honour to train the unbeaten Frankel.
Cecil, who is battling stomach cancer, will saddle the four-year-old in what is expected to be his last ever race at Ascot on Saturday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/horse-racing/19964043

Morpheous (Frankels Half-Brother) runs today,  it's a couple of lengths behind Frankel at his stage of his career but  will come on big time as a three-year-old/

£100 million, Frankel is most valuable stallion prospect ever.

Khalid Abdulla knows full well that he has an extremely valuable property on his hands – industry experts value Frankel at £100 million for stud purposes – but he is eager that his horse gets the chance to prove himself a champion in the breeding sheds as well as on the racecourse.

By HOTSPUR (J A McGrath) telegraph.co.uk

When this equine phenomenon retires after running his 14th race in Saturday’s Qipco Champion Stakes at Ascot, he will take up residence at his owner’s Banstead Manor Stud, at Cheveley, just two miles from Warren Place in Newmarket, where he has spent his racing career.

Contrary to widespread belief, Prince Khalid plans to make Frankel available to mares owned outside his own Juddmonte Farms operation, which offers the great horse every chance of becoming another successful stallion who is a son of Coolmore super sire Galileo.

No stud fee will be set until after Saturday, but it not unreasonable to expect the figure to stretch to a six figures. With up to 200 mares served each year, and based the income generated over his first four years as a sire, Frankel is worth around £100m, which makes him the most valuable unproven commodity in breeding ever.

So, if one the new wave of fabulously wealthy owners seen at Tattersalls Sales in Newmarket last week were to step forward with their chequebook, could Frankel be bought? “I doubt it,” Lord Grimthorpe, racing manager to Prince Khalid, said with a nervous chuckle. “He’s not for sale, as far as I know,” he quickly added.

With the focus having been on the build-up to Frankel’s last race, very little has been revealed about the life he can look forward to as a stallion.

When he returns home on Saturday, it will be the responsibility of trainer Sir Henry Cecil and his staff to encourage the colt to wind down gradually over a period weeks.

Switching from a racing regime, during which he has been finely-tuned to consistently excel at the highest level, to a relatively more leisurely environment, albeit with the demands of his new job, is never easy. Though he could well take to it naturally, he will need to quickly learn the drill as a new stallion next spring.

“The aim is to make him a successful stallion, but there are many unknowns,” Lord Grimthorpe said. “We would like to make him available to other breeders because it helps you to know more about what’s going to fit and suit. It’s trial and error, and the outside mares help give you the width. You really don’t know what [bloodlines] will work until you give it a try. If you restrict the [type of] mares available, it doesn’t help.”

As far as setting a fee is concerned, Lord Grimthorpe said it had yet to be finally discussed. “It is about getting the balance right, with a stallion who is unproven. There are many factors, nothing is guaranteed,” he said.

But what is assured is the interest in a horse being acclaimed as the greatest to have raced in Britain in four decades. It is difficult for a champion racehorse to actually sire one who is his equal, or even better.

Mill Reef was a successful sire but found it impossible to pass on his unquestioned class and superb versatility to his progeny. Nijinsky sired winners of the Epsom Derby and Kentucky Derby, but again, he produced nothing that equalled his outstanding qualities.

What is encouraging with Frankel is that he comes from the most successful sire line of the past 50 years, one that seems to have been getting stronger and better with each generation. Frankel is a son of Galileo, who is a son of Sadler’s Wells, who, in turn, is a son of Northern Dancer, who was the bedrock on which Vincent O’Brien established Ballydoyle, as well as Coolmore.

It is interesting to note that Frankel came from a band of 10 young horses who had been the pooled result of an exchange programme between Juddmonte and Coolmore, under which each stud made use of the other’s stallion with selected mares.

The collection of young horses were then allocated. “That year, Juddmonte had first choice and I’m very pleased to say we selected the colt, who is Frankel,” said Lord Grimthorpe

guys i have laid Frankel for a fair amount, feel like a traitor, on saturday i will cheer him home and feel very happy if he wins, some things are worth more than money, but i have a bad feeling hence the lay, wished they would pull him out and call it a day

Frankel: the full story of the world's greatest racehorse

As Frankel faces his final race, Brian Viner talks to his trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, and others who know the world's greatest racehorse best.

By Brian Viner telegraph.co.uk

19 Oct 2012

Frankel. It is not a name that rolls off the tongue, like those of some other great thoroughbred racehorses, such as Nijinsky, Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard.

But in racing people it ignites sheer wonder, for Frankel is the superstar of Flat racing, not simply unbeaten in 13 races, but untouchable.

In monetary terms his potential to sire future champions makes him the most valuable single sporting commodity on the planet. It is said £100 million would not buy him.

At Ascot tomorrow afternoon Frankel and his jockey, Tom Queally, will attempt to extend their winning run to 14 races out of 14. Should they fail, the shock will radiate far beyond Berkshire, the more so as tomorrow’s big race, the Qipco Champion Stakes, is likely to be Frankel’s valediction. At four years old, the racehorse said by some to be the greatest ever foaled is on the verge of retirement.

If his owner, the billionaire Saudi businessman Prince Khalid Abdullah, does decide to call time on this epic chapter in Flat racing (as distinct from National Hunt, or jump racing), then when tomorrow’s meeting is over Frankel will be driven back to the Warren Place stables in Newmarket, owned by his trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, and attention will turn to his forthcoming stud career, where his colossal value now lies. Some 120 brood mares a year will visit him, their owners paying at least £100,000 in the event of a foaling. That might go on for the best part of two decades. 

No one could have foreseen all this on the day Frankel was foaled – February 11 2008 – at Banstead Manor stud near Newmarket, the breeding arm of Prince Khalid’s Juddmonte racing operation. True, the young bay colt had a marvellous lineage. His parents were the 2001 Derby winner, Galileo, and Kind, a mare who had won five consecutive races in 2004. But equine breeding is an inexact science. 'As [the American breeder] Bull Hancock said, “You send the best to the best and hope for the best,”’ Philip Mitchell, who runs Banstead Manor stud, told me.


The first signs that the progeny of Galileo and Kind might not only live up to expectations but exceed them emerged on a July morning in 2010, the day of Frankel’s first proper gallop, with Queally in the saddle, on the vast Limekilns training ground a couple of miles outside Newmarket. Among those watching was Prince Khalid’s racing manager, Lord Grimthorpe, whose job it is to liaise every day with the 14 trainers of the prince’s 250 horses worldwide, and report nightly to his patron. In a lifetime in racing, he said, he had never seen a spectacle like it. One moment Frankel was bunched up with his stablemates, the next he was streaking away as if the others were hauling ploughs.

'I have to watch a lot of gallops and know how misleading it can be when you don’t know all the horses, weights or instructions,’ Lord Grimthorpe told the racing journalist Brough Scott. 'But you could not mistake this. He was going so fast at the end we thought he would finish in Newmarket High Street. When we gathered afterwards, nobody said anything, and Queally was white as a sheet.’

Henry Cecil knew better than anyone that impressive speed on the gallops is not always replicated on the track, yet his natural reticence hid a growing excitement at the possibilities for this still-unnamed colt. 'I realised he was out of the ordinary about halfway through the year,’ Cecil told me in his oak-panelled study at Warren Place. 'There was something very different about him.’

The same might be said of the charismatic Cecil. He started training as an assistant to his elderly stepfather, Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, before striking out on his own in 1969. There followed 30 years of steady and sometimes spectacular success, before a precipitous, disastrous decline at the start of the new century in both his professional and personal fortunes. His beloved twin brother, David, died of cancer; his second marriage disintegrated; he even lost his driving licence for five years. Then he, too, was diagnosed with cancer, of the stomach, and all the while the yard produced fewer and fewer winners, hitting an all-time low in 2005, with only 12.

Many racehorse owners severed their ties with him, but Prince Khalid stayed loyal. The 75-year-old prince, the brother-in-law of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, had been involved in British racing since the 1970s, and with Cecil since 1990. They had forged a firm friendship. But business is still business. And although Cecil’s travails had compounded the affection in which he was held by the racing public, plenty felt he was a busted flush.

Happily, the yard returned to form. And little though anyone knew it on the day Prince Khalid sent him 'the Galileo colt’, Cecil’s greatest triumphs were yet to come. For Lord Grimthorpe it is the comeback of all comebacks. 'Henry’s gone from the Premier League to practically the Conference and back,’ he said, offering a football analogy. 'It is one of the great sporting achievements.’

Characteristically, Cecil plays down his talents. 'I’m qualified to do nothing,’ he said. 'I was the first student ever to fail Common Entrance into Eton from an Eton prep school. But I got a chance as my stepfather’s assistant. I’ve been very lucky.’

His luck remains variable. Cecil, 69, is currently being treated for cancer for the second time. The weight has dropped off him, the beautifully cut suits hang limply, and, when we talked, a throat infection had reduced his voice to a hoarse whisper. 'I look like death,’ he rasped, 'and when people see me they’ll think I’m going to die tomorrow. But I’m not.’ Chemotherapy, he assured me, was doing its job. He would get better. All the same, his illness adds poignancy to Frankel’s success. The horse appears to have intensified Cecil’s already fierce will to live.

'I love life,’ said Cecil, whose staccato sentences have more to do with his patrician background than his ill-health. 'I’ve always been a winner. I’ve had bad times – personal or financial, no horses, bad years – but I don’t like being an also-ran. I have responsibilities. I’m married again. And I’m very determined that I have to be there for Frankel. So he has helped to keep me going.’

Three months after his first gallop at Limekilns, the horse, by now named Frankel (after Bobby Frankel, one of America’s most successful trainers, who trained many winners for Prince Khalid, and who died of leukaemia in 2009), demonstrated his abilities where it really mattered, at Ascot. The Royal Lodge Stakes was Frankel’s third race, but the first in which he obliterated top-class opposition, winning by 10 lengths and pulling clear of the others 'like a greyhound that had just slipped its leash’, according to Brough Scott.


It was becoming clear that the length of Frankel’s stride would be the main weapon in his armoury. Along with a formidable lung capacity, it helps him to accelerate more than once in a race. Even the finest racehorses can normally find only one extra gear; Frankel has two, sometimes three. The horses that can keep pace with him the first time he quickens have nothing left to give when he quickens again. And although he is not huge, he has unusually large feet, which even in a gallop he sets rather than stamps down, making him less reliant than most horses on the condition of the ground.

Following the Royal Lodge Stakes, the bookmakers, always a nose ahead of the betting fraternity, immediately slashed Frankel’s odds for the following year’s 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, the first of the Flat racing season’s so-called Classics (five prestigious races open only to three-year-olds).

On April 30 last year Frankel started the Guineas as the shortest-priced favourite since 1974, and went on to make his 1/2 odds look downright generous: his performance was simply one of the most dominant in the venerable race’s 200-year history. In the Queen Anne Stakes at Ascot this summer, which he started at odds of 1/10, Frankel won by 11 lengths, compelling racing correspondents to reach for new superlatives. 'This was not just Frankel’s finest performance,’ Greg Wood wrote in the Guardian, '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.’

Of course it isn’t simply Frankel’s natural assets that propel him across the turf so much faster than the competition; he has been impeccably handled by Cecil and his devoted team at Warren Place, all of whom speak about him with great affection, and some as if he were human.

'He’s very much his own person,’ Cecil said. 'He has a presence. It’s rather like people. Through my training career I’ve come across so many people I’d never otherwise have met, whether it be princes or successful businessmen. Most have an ambience about them, a lot of presence and panache. Good horses have the same thing.’

Shane Featherstonhaugh, a 35-year-old Dubliner who rides Frankel daily in training, agrees. 'He’s a big alpha male,’ he says. 'He’s not one for petting.’ Like his colleagues, Featherstonhaugh tries not to think about Frankel’s eye-watering value. 'They talk about hundreds of millions, but that has no meaning to me,’ he said. 'I don’t understand those numbers.’

What he does understand is riding, yet neither he, nor Cecil, nor anyone else, can make any racehorse run quicker than muscle and sinew allow. All they can do is minimise the dozens of imponderables that might obstruct its development.

'What people don’t sometimes understand,’ Lord Grimthorpe explained, 'is just what it takes to get a horse to the races in good fettle once. To get him there 13 times, to get out of him the sort of performances that people crave, want and adore, is quite extraordinary. The combination of things that have to go right is not quite the Lottery… but it’s up there.’

Among those charged with ensuring that the Lottery balls fall as favourably as possible is Frankel’s groom, Sandeep Gauravaram, a 32-year-old former jockey from Hyderabad. An engaging but shy man, he is still not comfortable with the attention that Frankel’s fame has brought his way. But, brought in to Cecil’s study to talk about the wonder horse, he became animated.

'He wants things done his way,’ he said. 'We tried to move him to one of the bigger boxes, and he didn’t like it. He tried to jump out, he sulked, he wouldn’t eat.’ This was the stretch of stables known by staff as Millionaires’ Row. It is where Cecil has kept all his most prized horses, but not Frankel. He stayed in his swanky new surroundings for less than two days before being returned to the barn in the oldest, least salubrious part of the yard, where lorries come and go all day, and where, traditionally, the also-rans live.

Such willpower made Frankel tricky to handle early on in his career. As Cecil’s travelling head lad, responsible for getting horses to courses, and for their welfare once they are there, Michael McGowan had a few run-ins with the rising star. 'As a two-year-old he was quite difficult,’ McGowan recalled. 'But at three he became more settled, and now he’s the complete professional.’

This was confirmed by the 29-year-old Irishman whose happy destiny it is to be forever bracketed with Frankel in the record books. 'He’s grown up no end,’ Tom Queally told me, as he sat outside the weighing-room at Newmarket Racecourse. 'He’s so mature now, much more relaxed. Even as a three-year-old he could be very fiery, but pure class got him through. Now, I’ve amazing belief in him. I couldn’t pull him up at York [where Frankel last raced, in August, winning the Juddmonte International Stakes, sponsored by Prince Khalid, by a street]. Some horses are triers, but they’re normally low-grade animals. For a horse with so much at his disposal, he just gives you so much. I’ve ridden some very good horses, but when they get to the front they think they’ve done enough.’

Henry Cecil has grown used to the claim that Frankel is the greatest racehorse of all time, and treats it with a mix of pride, gratitude and self-deprecation. 'Good horses help make successful trainers,’ he said, 'and I’ve had a lot of champions. And I didn’t live in the days of Sceptre [the only horse to win four British Classics] in the early 1900s. So it’s very difficult to compare. But it would be wrong to say he isn’t the best horse there’s ever been… because he could be.’

Cecil admitted that there will be a tear in his eye on the day Frankel leaves the yard. 'I may be training for 30 more years,’ he said – with a wry smile, as if daring me to contradict him – 'but it’s very unlikely that I’ll get another one like that.

At least the very first couple of threads show Frankel wasn't dodging Black Caviar, So You Think or any other horse and both were free to take him on in his chosen races had they wanted to.

probably best to just savour the memorys of frankel and be thankfull that we have had the privalge to witness an undoughtably great horse . for me the guineas anhialation of the field left me open mouthed from start to finish ! and i dont think i will see another performance like that again  ,to be fair even if he had been campaigned and victorius  in all the top races this season, i.e  arc and even at the breeders cup ect ,it still cannot prove that he is or is not the greatest off all time . a bit like saying messi is better than pele or maradona ,it cannot be proved one way or another .

Racenews‏@RacenewsService

FRANKEL FACTFILE #BCD http://conta.cc/T7pkkJ 




FRANKEL (GB) FACTFILE

4 b c Galileo (IRE) - Kind (IRE) (Danehill (USA))

Form: 1111/11111-11111 Owner: Khalid Abdulla Trainer: Sir Henry Cecil

Jockey: Tom Queally Breeder: Juddmonte Farms Ltd Born: February 11, 2008



Frankel

In 14 racecourse appearances, the unbeaten Frankel has more than proved a fitting tribute to the legendary US trainer Bobby Frankel, who provided owner/breeder Khalid Abdulla with a host of big-race victories in America until his death from cancer at the age of 68 in November, 2009. The home-bred son of Galileo is a three-parts brother to 2010 Lingfield Derby Trial winner Bullet Train, a five-year-old who acts as his pacemaker these days, and a full-brother to three-year-old Noble Mission, winner of the Group Three Gordon Stakes at Glorious Goodwood in 2012. Frankel made an eye-catching winning debut when readily scoring in a mile maiden on Newmarket's July Course on August 13, 2010, as he beat subsequent dual Group One victor Nathaniel by half a length. He built on that promising start when quickening clear of two rivals for a bloodless 13-length victory in a seven-furlong conditions race at Doncaster's St Leger meeting on September 10 that year. The manner of his win saw Frankel propelled towards the head of the ante-post markets for both the 2011 QIPCO 2,000 Guineas and the Investec Derby and he showed himself as a juvenile of uncommon ability with a stunning success in the Group Two Juddmonte Royal Lodge Stakes over a mile at Ascot on September 25. 2010. Not content with the sedate pace, Tom Queally took up the running entering the straight and Frankel accelerated away from the field with ease to gain an almost effortless 10-length triumph over Klammer. His trainer then suggested that Frankel was the finest juvenile to have passed through his hands since Wollow in 1975 (who subsequently went on to win the 2,000 Guineas). Frankel's final start of 2010 came at Newmarket on October 16 in the Group One Dubai Dewhurst Stakes. A strong line-up for the prestigious seven-furlong event also included dual Group One winner Dream Ahead and impressive Group Two victor Saamidd. Held up at the rear of the field, Frankel began to make smooth progress with three furlongs remaining and led before the furlong pole, defeating Roderic O'Connor by two and a quarter lengths in good style. The runner-up strongly endorsed the form when winning a Group One in France afterwards. Frankel was the joint champion two-year-old in Europe on official ratings with Dream Ahead - rated 126 as well as being named the Two-Year-Old Colt of 2010 at the Cartier Racing Awards. Frankel reappeared in 2011 in the seven-furlong Group Three Greenham Stakes at Newbury on April 16, when he went to the front passing the three-furlong marker to record a comfortable four-length success over subsequent French Group One winner Excelebration. He started the shortest-priced favourite in the QIPCO 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket since Apalachee, third at 4/9 in 1974, going off at ½. He galloped his opponents into submission in the mile Classic and was over 10 lengths clear before halfway, winning most impressively by six lengths from Dubawi Gold with the field strung out. After this truly stunning performance, he headed to Royal Ascot for the Group One St James's Palace Stakes, also over a mile, on June 14 and extended his unbeaten run. But the victory was not delivered in the manner expected by his legion of admirers. Queally sent the colt to the lead with well over three furlongs remaining and Frankel was six lengths clear with a quarter of a mile to run. After such an explosive mid-race burst however, his momentum decreased markedly inside the final furlong, allowing the fast closing Zoffany to get within three quarters of a length at the line. Frankel took on older rivals for the first time in the QIPCO Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on July 27 last year, with his main opposition set to come from five-time Group One winner Canford Cliffs in a race billed as the 'Duel on the Downs'. In reality the mile contest looked distinctly one-sided as Frankel made the running before powering clear for an imperious five-length success. Connections briefly toyed with the idea of stepping Frankel up to a mile and a quarter for either the Juddmonte International or the QIPCO British Champions Stakes, deciding on the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Sponsored by QIPCO on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot, October 15, when he cruised to a four-length victory over Excelebration. The World Thoroughbred Rankings for 2011 handed Frankel a rating of 136, 4lb clear of the outstanding Australian sprinter Black Caviar, making him officially the best horse in the world. He was Cartier Horse Of The Year and Cartier Three-Year-Old Colt in 2011. He began the current season at Newbury on May 19, when he sauntered to a facile five-length victory over his old rival Excelebration in the Group One JLT Lockinge Stakes at Newbury over a mile. Despite that deficit being the biggest in four meetings with Excelebration, Sir Henry Cecil was expecting a sharper performance at Royal Ascot and the four-year-old did not disappoint. Frankel faced 10 rivals including Excelebration in the Group One Queen Anne Stakes over the straight mile - the opening race of the meeting - and produced a performance of the very highest quality, routing the field for an emphatic 11-length victory. In the aftermath of the performance, Timeform gave Frankel a rating of 147, the highest in the organisation's 64-year history, while the British Horseracing Authority increased Frankel's rating to 140, 1lb behind Khalid Abdulla's outstanding 1986 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Dancing Brave. He achieved another first when capturing his second QIPCO Sussex Stakes at Goodwood by six lengths on August 1. Frankel ran beyond a mile for the first time when contesting the Group One Juddmonte International over an extended 10 furlongs at York on August 22. The nine-strong field included a host of top-class performers including St Nicholas Abbey, Farhh and Twice Over, but Frankel treated them with complete disdain, cruising into the lead two furlongs out before striding clear for a seven-length victory. The ease of his success persuaded connections to contemplate the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe over an extra furlong and a half but Khalid Abdulla's racing manager, Lord Grimthorpe, confirmed, after a period of consideration, that Frankel's target was today's QIPCO Champion Stakes at Ascot which he won in good style today. The 10-furlong showpiece was Frankel's final race before a career at stud. Frankel has started favourite in all his races and, bar his debut, went off at odds-on. Tom Queally has ridden Frankel every time he has run.

Race Record: Starts: 14; 1st: 14 2nd:-; 3rd:-; Win & Place Prize Money: £2,998,302



Khalid Abdulla

Prince Khalid Abdulla(h), who prefers to be known as plain Mr K Abdulla on the racecard, is a first cousin to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He owns extensive racing and breeding interests in America, Britain, France and Ireland. He is a semi-retired businessman who, along with his four sons, presides over a huge conglomerate, the Mawarid Group, in Saudi Arabia and beyond. He developed a love for British racing during the 1960s when renting a house in London and, with the help of former trainer Humphrey Cottrill, had his first winner on May 14, 1979, when the Jeremy Tree-trained Charming Native scored at Windsor. Born in Taif, Saudi Arabia, in 1937, Abdulla has been one of the most successful owner-breeders in Europe over the past four decades and is the only current owner to have owned and bred the winners of all five British Classics. The first British Classic success came when Known Fact was awarded the 1980 QIPCO 2,000 Guineas on the disqualification of Nureyev. He has won the QIPCO 2,000 Guineas thrice more, thanks to Dancing Brave (1986), Zafonic (1993) and Frankel (2011) who promises to be best of them all, while in 1990 Quest For Fame gave him an initial Investec Derby triumph, followed by Commander In Chief in 1993 and Workforce in 2010. His only Ladbrokes St Leger victory came with the Andre Fabre-trained Toulon in 1991. Abdulla also races with great success in France, Ireland and the United States, where under the Juddmonte Farms banner he won a Triple Crown race in 2003 with Empire Maker in the Belmont Stakes. In 2003, Abdulla became champion owner in both Britain (78 winners) and France (58 winners), while he also finished third in the USA owners' championship. The full-sisters out of Hasili, Banks Hill (2001) and Intercontinental (2005), gave Abdulla a notable pair of victories in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf, a race he also annexed in 2009 with three-time Nassau Stakes (2009, 2010 & 2011) winner Midday. Hasili also produced the owner's dual Grade One winning mare Heat Haze, trained by the late Bobby Frankel. 2010 was a superb year and Abdulla finished it as champion owner in Britain (74 winners & prize money of over £3 million) for the second time, while Juddmonte was crowned the top breeder once again. Workforce won both the Investec Derby and Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in great style, while the unbeaten Frankel was crowned joint-champion European juvenile after victory in the Dubai Dewhurst Stakes. Special Duty also won two 2010 Classics in the stewards' room. In the QIPCO 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, she was promoted to first ahead of Jacqueline Quest after finishing a nose second and in the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches, the filly was awarded first place after coming home the head runner-up to Liliside. Abdulla's other 1,000 Guineas win came with Wince in 1999. Twice Over has also been a leading light over the past few seasons, taking the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket in 2009 and 2010 as well as the 2010 Coral-Eclipse and 2011 Juddmonte International. Frankel is probably Abdulla's greatest horse and remains unbeaten in 14 races, 10 of which have come at Group One level, including the QIPCO 2,000 Guineas, St James's Palace Stakes, QIPCO Sussex Stakes (2011 & 2012), Queen Elizabeth II Stakes sponsored by QIPCO, the Queen Anne Stakes, the Juddmonte International and the QIPCO Champion Stakes. Frankel's exploits last year played a large part in Abdulla winning another owners' championship in Britain in 2011 (63 wins and over £3.4 million in prize money). The owner's Juddmonte breeding operation has nine properties in England, Ireland and Kentucky, including the 373-acre Banstead Manor Stud just outside Newmarket and the 2,500-acre Juddmonte Farms south of Lexington. Juddmonte Farms stand 10 stallions, including Oasis Dream and Dansili, as well as outstanding broodmares in Britain and the US including Hasili, Toussaud and Slightly Dangerous. Abdulla is an honorary member of the British Jockey Club and his daughter was married to the late Prince Fahd Salman, owner of 1991 Derby victor Generous. His notable horses have included the great Dancing Brave, narrowly beaten in the 1986 Derby but successful in the 2,000 Guineas, Eclipse, King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Rainbow Quest, Warning, Danehill, Reams Of Verse, Rail Link, Zafonic, Oasis Dream, Chester House, Observatory, Xaar, All At Sea, Commander In Chief, Sanglamore, Ryafan, Exbourne, Marquetry, Raintrap, Sun Shack, Aptitude, Senure, Tates Creek, Cacique, Ventura and Proviso. Abdulla has over 300 broodmares and a similar number of horses in training. Lord Grimthorpe is his racing manager in Europe and Dr John Chandler oversees his US interests. He has won 10 Eclipse Awards in America as well as plenty of Cartier Racing Awards in Europe including the Award of Merit in 2002.



Sir Henry Cecil

Sir Henry Cecil, who was awarded a knighthood for services to racing in the Queen's 2011 Birthday Honours List, has been Britain's champion trainer 10 times and is master of Warren Place Stables in Newmarket. Since taking out a licence in 1969, he has compiled a record of success that ranks him among the pantheon of training legends. He has won 36 European Classics, including 25 in Britain, collected over 400 Pattern successes and saddled well over 3,000 individual winners. He is also the most successful trainer at Royal Ascot, having won 75 races at the meeting. Henry Richard Amherst Cecil was born in Aberdeen on January 11, 1943, 10 minutes before his twin brother David, with whom he enjoyed a close bond. His father, Captain Henry Cecil of the Welsh Guards, brother of the third Baron Amherst of Hackney, was killed in action in North Africa some two weeks prior to the birth. Henry's widowed mother Rohays subsequently married royal trainer Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochfort and moved her brood of four boys to Freemason Lodge from the family farm near Newmarket. His formative years at Freemason Lodge stables, along with his brothers Bow, James, David and later Arthur, infused a desire to pursue a life in racing. This was undoubtedly detrimental to any potential academic distractions that may have robbed the sport of one of its most intuitive talents. In his book, On The Level, published in 1983, Cecil recalls at the age of seven being sent to prep school at Sunningdale where, with his twin David, he "went straight to the bottom form and stayed there". He failed to get into Eton and spent the remainder of his school life at Canford School in Dorset, which he left with 10 O-Levels, before embarking on a high-spirited year at Cirencester's Royal Agricultural College, where he and David "studied drinking and gambling", before leaving without sitting any exams. Henry was destined for a career in stud management until accepting the role of assistant to his step-father in 1964. Two years later he married Julie Murless, daughter of the great trainer Sir Noel Murless. Boyd-Rochfort, the man he called Uncle Cecil, retired at the end of the 1968 Flat season, at which point Henry took over the reins at Freemason Lodge. He did not exactly hit the ground running and it was two months before he sighted the winner's enclosure. His initial victory as a licensed trainer came on May 17, 1969, when Celestial Cloud was the short-head winner of an amateur riders' event at Ripon. That success came after a piece of anxious advice from his then father-in-law. After watching the Cecil string work, Sir Noel Murless, never one to interfere, awkwardly declared: "Your horses are galloping like a lot of old gentlemen. You must make them work." Henry gratefully heeded the advice and big-race glory soon followed with Wolver Hollow in the 1969 Eclipse. A move to Marriott Stables brought his first European Classic, courtesy of Cloonagh in the 1973 Irish 1,000 Guineas. Bolkonski's win in the 1975 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket set the ball rolling in Britain. Wollow's 2,000 Guineas victory a year later came in his first season training at Warren Place, formerly the yard of his father-in-law, and heralded an era of success that has etched his name indelibly in the annals of racing greatness. As the 1980s dawned, the Henry Cecil legend took shape. Supported by wife Julie, head man Paddy Rudkin, travelling head man George Winsor and others, he reigned supreme. He ended the 1979 season as champion trainer with a 20th century record of 128 wins to his name. That was his third title in four seasons, in a year that saw One In A Million land the QIPCO 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket and Le Moss and Kris emerge as champions. The following decade brought five more training titles, while eight individual British Classic winners, including the Derby heroes Slip Anchor (1985) and Reference Point (1987), and the brilliant fillies' Triple Crown scorer Oh So Sharp (1985), were complemented by champions such as Ardross, Diesis, Indian Skimmer and Old Vic. In 1985, the year of Slip Anchor and Oh So Sharp, Henry became the first trainer in history to pass the £1-million mark in prize money. The 1987 season brought an even more phenomenal feat as Warren Place runners captured 180 races, smashing John Day's 1867 record of 146. Success continued throughout the next decade with a further clutch of Classic triumphs including four Oaks wins in five years with Lady Carla (1996), Reams Of Verse (1997), Ramruma (1999) and Love Divine (2000). He produced the brilliant Bosra Sham to be champion filly, nursing her fragile feet with the patience and care with which he is renowned, while enjoying two further successes in the Derby with Commander In Chief (1993) and Oath (1999). The latter's owner, the late Prince Ahmed Salman, summed up the feeling of many after Oath's triumph when he said, "winning Classics is easy. You just buy a horse and send it to Henry Cecil". The years have seen many of his owner-breeders pass away, while the loss of Sheikh Mohammed's patronage in 1995 was an undoubted blow. The numbers housed at Warren Place fell dramatically from a peak of near 200, so that by midway through the decade 2000 to 2010 Cecil was no longer seen as a force in the contests that mattered. Owners deserted him, though notably Khalid Abdulla and the Niarchos Family remained loyal. The family standard, run up the flag pole after each Group One win, gathered dust for over six years after Beat Hollow's Grand Prix de Paris win in 2000. In 2006, however, a corner was turned as Multidimensional gave Cecil his first Pattern success in four years. October of that year marked a return to the top table as the Khalid Abdulla-owned Passage Of Time captured the Group One Criterium de Saint-Cloud. Classic success made a welcome return to Warren Place in 2007 when Light Shift, owned by the Niarchos Family, clinched an emotional success in the Investec Oaks under Ted Durcan, while Midday went close to handing the stable a ninth victory in the premier fillies' Classic when a close runner-up to Sariska in 2009. The Khalid Abdulla-owned filly subsequently proved a bona fide superstar, with an unprecedented three victories in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood in 2009, 2010 and 2011 as well as the Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille in 2010. She also provided Cecil with a first success at the Breeders' Cup when landing the 2009 Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita. Twice Over has also been a standard bearer for Warren Place over the past few seasons, taking the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket in 2009 and 2010 as well as the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown in 2010 and York's Juddmonte International in 2011. The unbeaten Frankel is the latest superstar on the block, having won 14 races, 10 of which have come at Group One level (the Dewhurst Stakes, the QIPCO 2000 Guineas, the St James' Palace Stakes, the QIPCO Sussex Stakes (2011 & 2012), the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes sponsored by QIPCO, the JLT Lockinge Stakes, the Queen Anne Stakes, the Juddmonte International and the QIPCO Champion Stakes). He is rated the top horse in the world and Cecil believes he is the best he has ever trained and the best horse ever. As well as housing equine superstars, Warren Place was also the haunt of champion jockeys, with Joe Mercer, Lester Piggott, Steve Cauthen, Pat Eddery and later Kieren Fallon each doing their bit and enjoying the spoils of the master trainer's meticulously-planned campaigns. Nowadays, the talented young Irishman Tom Queally is the jockey proving his worth atop Cecil-trained contenders. The record books do not lie and Cecil rewrote them as he cultivated and nurtured a string of champions. He is a trainer of great flair - a gifted horseman with an exceptional ability in assessing a horse, and possesses a rare instinctive genius that enables him to appreciate potential far earlier than most. He is also the focus of great fascination, particularly among the media - a champion trainer with a penchant for gardening and fine clothes. He has fought cancer over the last few years and married Jane McKeown, his third wife, in 2008.



Tom Queally

Tom Queally, born on October 8, 1984, has come a long way since riding his first winner on the John Roche-trained Larifaari at Clonmel on April 13, 2000, when 15. He was crowned Ireland's champion apprentice the same season. From Dungarvan in County Waterford, where his father Declan combines farming with a small training operation, Queally was out hunting on his pony by the age of seven. After a spell showjumping, he was a leading figure on the pony racing circuit by the age of 13 and was apprenticed to trainer Pat Flynn two years later. The apprenticeship was terminated when Queally's parents insisted he finish his leaving certificate at school. At the end of a quiet 2002, when apprenticed to his father, he moved to Aidan O'Brien at Ballydoyle, winning the following year's Group Three Ballysax Stakes on Balestrini. With the help of owner/trainer Barney Curley, he moved to Britain in 2004 and joined David Loder's Newmarket stable, becoming British champion apprentice that year. He won the 2008 Group Three Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Epsom aboard Lady Gloria and is now attached to Sir Henry Cecil's Warren Place stable. Since his move to Cecil's yard, he has recorded significant victories on Midday, who finished runner-up in the 2009 Investec Oaks before going on to claim the Group One Nassau Stakes at Goodwood (2009, 2010 and 2011), the Darley Yorkshire Oaks (2010), Qatar Prix Vermeille (2010) and the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (2009). Twice Over has given him success in the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes (2009 and 2010), and the Coral-Eclipse Stakes (2010). Queally gained his first Group One success in Ireland when Chachamaidee was awarded the 2012 Matron Stakes in the stewards' room after she was hampered in the closing stages. In 2009, he also won two Group One sprints, partnering the Michael Bell-trained Art Connoisseur in Royal Ascot's Golden Jubilee Stakes (Queally's first top level win) and Fleeting Spirit, trained by Jeremy Noseda, in the Darley July Cup at Newmarket. He has partnered the world's highest-rated horse Frankel on all the colt's 14 appearances, including Group One wins in the Darley Dewhurst Stakes (2010), QIPCO 2,000 Guineas (2011), St James's Palace Stakes (2011), QIPCO Sussex Stakes (2011 & 2012), Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (sponsored by QIPCO) (2011), JLT Lockinge Stakes (2012), Queen Anne Stakes (2012), Juddmonte International (2012) and QIPCO Champion Stakes

Whilst I too have been frustrated by his campaign ( gutless imo is too harsh )are you saying that the greatest horse has to have won a race over 12F? That to my mind is non-sensical.

Whilst I think it impossible with any certainty to declare the greatest horse of all time, yesterday's racing proved Frankel to be truly one of the all time greats.

Firstly he won his race against two proven, top class Group 1 winners who were running on their preferred ground. Whilst he didn't win as far as perhaps some would have wanted, the way he cruised by them both without being asked a question proved his complete superiority.

Secondly was the win of Excelebration. I was on the rail for that race, and whilst it wasn't the strongest renewal, you got a real sense of his excelleration which on that ground was quite startling. We all know how far Frankel continually beat him, it simply makes it clear how brilliant a performance Frankel put up in the Queen Anne - much as I wanted him to run in the POW.

With respect, that is your opinion buddeliea as you mention 12F races ( greatest ones ) that need to be on the cv.

Whilst I agree the lack of range of distances makes it difficult to say Frankel the greatest ever, imo if he had won a top sprint or two like the July Cup in the way he won his other races, he could have laid claim to that.

Poor old Buddeliea!! This must REALLY pain you. You have been drumming your anti-Frankel drum for so long. Unfortunately for you no one can hear it now.

If I were you I would avoid newspapers, racing programmes and forums for a while. I think The Greatest will be talked about for a little while yet.

Well that means you are against an overwhelming majority my friend. And that includes some of the oldest, wisest, been there and seen it all heads in racing.

Come on. Really it is not rocket science is it?! Anyone with eyes can see it.

By the same token surely you cant say that he wasnt - though this is precisely what you do say. You cite the fact that he didn't win mile and a half races as your reason yet he wasn't a mile and a half horse! Race titles mean nothing anyway. Would you have been happier if he had beaten Main Sequence? Or Treasure Beech? (well he did actually but only by 11 lengths), Nathaniel? (oops)You know that it is a silly argument and no one who knows the sport properly would use it.

You say you are not anti-Frankel but then call his campaign "gutless" sounds rather anti to me my friend.

I would have more respect for you if you actually admitted that you got it wrong all along. You thought he'd get beat but he didn't. You under-rated him. Nothing wrong with that although how you could have missed it is beyond me. 

Listen nobody will ever be able to scientifically prove that he was the best - we are not idiots we ALL know that. Just like nobody could ever prove Ali was the greatest boxer, Bradman the greatest cricketer or Federer the greatest tennin player. But we all know don't we? Even you deep down know it. That is why you are on here the very day after the masterpiece is completed. The lady doth protest too much my friend.

You HAVE never and WILL never see another horse like it. You know it, I know it, the world knows it. Adieu, amen as Alistair said.

Good for you Buddilea. I'm sure you are right.

but just imagine if he'd won the arc and then gone to america and won on the bit in the breeders cup

Fair comments