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Prince Khalid Abdullah with the great Frankel

Frankel's stallion career so far after 100 stakes winners

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Thu August 11, 2022 · 2y ago

After Frankel notched his hundredth stakes winner recently, John Ingles looks at how Timeform's highest rated horse is faring in his second career.

Ton up for Frankel stakes winners

Last weekend, Frankel reached another milestone in his stallion career when his three-year-old daughter Emotion won the Listed Chalice Stakes at Newmarket to become his hundredth individual stakes winner.

Emotion comes from Frankel’s sixth crop of foals and her victory was a very timely one as it put her sire alongside Danehill who had apparently reached that landmark at exactly the same stage – to the day - of his own stallion career. That may be true, but Danehill, who also raced for Khalid Abdullah and became the sire of Frankel’s dam Kind, had the advantage of many more foals running for him as a result of shuttling between Europe and Australia.

Frankel is far too valuable an asset to be flown halfway round the world every six months, but he too has made his mark in Australia thanks to covering a number of mares later in the year to Southern Hemisphere time at Juddmonte’s Newmarket base Banstead Manor.

It’s not the first ‘speed record’ in Frankel’s stallion career, either, as last September he became the fastest European sire to clock up 50 Group winners when Inspiral won the May Hill Stakes at Doncaster. That total, by the way, stands at 67 at the time of writing.

These sorts of statistics are all well and good but with the size of stallions’ books varying markedly weight of numbers count for an awful lot. A much more impressive statistic, reflecting quality rather than quantity, is that 11% of Frankel’s foals have been Group winners.

How many star horses become top sires?

Frankel is proving hugely successful in his second career but it’s a bit of a paradox that, such was his standing as a racehorse, his success in the breeding shed could easily be taken for granted. He was a brilliant racehorse so why wouldn’t he excel as a stallion too? But you only have to look at the list of Timeform’s highest-rated horses over the decades – if anyone needs reminding, Frankel tops them all on 147 – to see that one doesn’t necessarily entail the other.

Brigadier Gerard didn’t leave much of a mark of at stud, and Dancing Brave and Reference Point were among other top-notchers whose stallion careers never came close to hitting the same heights they reached on the track. In the case of Dubai Millennium (who nonetheless left behind Dubawi) and Shergar, their stud careers were cut tragically short.

The likes of Mill Reef, Sea The Stars and Frankel, are, therefore, the exceptions rather than the rule in being outstanding racehorses who have excelled at stud. When Frankel became champion sire in Britain & Ireland in 2021, he was the first British-based sire to earn the title since Mill Reef 34 years earlier.

In short, Frankel had to build his reputation all over again when he started at stud in 2013 at an opening fee of £125,000 but he was given every chance to do so. As well as being mated with members of Juddmonte’s own elite band of broodmares, Frankel’s first book included such international celebrities as Germany’s Arc and King George winner Danedream, Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner Zagora and Japan Cup winner Vodka.

In this 2017 article by Timeform colleague Tom Heslop, the median rating of the mares in Frankel’s first book worked out at 109.5 which compared with 104.5 the same season for reigning champ Galileo. Being a son of Galileo was another reason for optimism about Frankel’s stallion career and while it was Frankel’s own exploits which helped Galileo win some of his early champion sire titles, he remained champion until Frankel finally ended his reign after 11 consecutive seasons last year.

It all started with a winner

Frankel’s first foals and yearlings didn’t meet with universal approval in the sale rings but that was soon forgotten when his first runners started to appear. Frankel’s own career hadn’t begun until mid-August of his two-year-old season but already by the end of July 2016 all of his first seven runners in Britain had won at least once, winning nine races from a total of 15 starts.

The one who got the ball rolling was Cunco, who also happened to be the very first of Frankel’s foals to have been born. Also the first Frankel foal to see a racecourse, he made a winning debut at Newbury. Appropriately enough, Frankel’s first Group winner was in Khalid Abdullah’s colours when Fair Eva won the Princess Margaret Stakes at Royal Ascot.

By the end of the year, Frankel finished third in the first-season sire table (by earnings) in Britain and Ireland behind Sir Prancealot who had more than twice as many runners, including a valuable sales race winner. Home and abroad, Frankel wound up with 18 individual winning two-year-olds, 15 of whom, remarkably, won first time out. Highest achiever in Europe in his first crop was the Richard Fahey-trained filly Queen Kindly who had Fair Eva back in third when winning the Lowther Stakes at York.

Elsewhere, Soul Stirring became Frankel’s first Group 1 winner when winning Japan’s top two-year-old race for fillies, the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies Stakes. Enthusiasm for Frankel in Japan has been evident right from the start of his stallion career – we’ve already mentioned Vodka in his first book of mares – and Mozu Ascot and Grenadier Guards (who contested the Platinum Jubilee Stakes) have given him further top-level success there. Japan is also where Frankel’s Champion Stakes-winning brother Noble Mission is now standing.

Frankel’s spectacular start with his first two-year-olds came as a surprise to most and his first crop certainly proved a lot more precocious than Galileo’s had been, yielding a single Listed winner.

In due course, Frankel’s first crop turned out to contain six individual Group 1 winners. Soul Stirring went on to win the Japanese Oaks but the real star from that crop turned out to be a colt who’d been one of Frankel’s debut winners at Newmarket in the autumn. Cracksman was sent off favourite to give Frankel a Derby winner from his first crop but Epsom, where he was having just his third start, came a bit too soon in Crackman’s development. But he was more the finished article by the autumn when following in his sire’s footsteps in the Champion Stakes which he won impressively by seven lengths. Kept in training at four, Cracksman went on to win the Prix Ganay, Coronation Cup and a second Champion Stakes.

Cracksman achieved a Timeform rating of 136 which remains the best by any of Frankel’s offspring to date. Now at stud himself, Cracksman has made a promising start with his first two-year-olds this year.

Anapurna opens classic account

Frankel’s first British classic winners came in 2019, from his third crop, when Anapurna won the Oaks and Logician won the St Leger. The latter was Frankel’s first Group 1 winner in Khalid Abdullah’s colours but poignantly also turned out to be the owner’s final British classic winner before his death early in 2021.

All three of Frankel’s Group 1 winners in his fourth crop were fillies. Quadrilateral won the Fillies’ Mile, Hungry Heart won two such races in Australia, including the Australian Oaks (she was the result of one of Frankel’s matings to Southern Hemisphere time) while Alpinista, now aged five, won her latest Group 1 in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud earlier in the summer.

Frankel’s fifth crop, foaled in 2018 and who were three-year-olds last year, were principally the ones he had to thank for his first sires’ championship. They included Falmouth Stakes winner Snow Lantern, his second winner of that race after Veracious two years earlier. But his chief earners were the Godolphin pair Adayar, winner of the Derby and King George, and Hurricane Lane who became his sire’s second St Leger winner, as well as winning the Irish Derby and Grand Prix de Paris. Rated 131 and 128 respectively, only Cracksman has a higher rating than that pair among Frankel’s offspring.

Adayar and Hurricane Lane have both remained in training as four-year-olds but Adayar still hasn’t reappeared (now due back in the September Stakes) while Hurricane Lane has been beaten in both his outings. But making up for their lack of success is Frankel’s current crop of three-year-olds which comprise seven Group/Grade 1 winners to date, making it already his most successful crop, six of whom have struck at the highest level this year.

How much does Frankel cost at stud?

They were the first crop conceived after Frankel’s fee was raised to £175,000 in 2018, with a second hike taking it to £200,000 this year. While Westover and Onesto, who became Frankel’s 25th Group/Grade 1 winner, have given their sire additional wins in the Irish Derby and Grand Prix de Paris respectively this summer, it’s Frankel’s daughters who have made the biggest impact among his current three-year-olds.

Inspiral made a belated but successful return in the Coronation Stakes while Homeless Songs is now on the sidelines until the autumn after she too was impressive in the Irish 1000 Guineas. Their respective ratings of 125 and 123p make them Frankel’s highest-rated fillies so far. Not too far behind them is Nashwa (119p) who recently added to her Prix de Diane victory in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, while in America the Chad Brown-trained McKulick led home a Frankel one-two in the Belmont Oaks when beating Godolphin’s With The Moonlight.

But despite another very successful year, Frankel has it all to do to retain his British and Irish sires’ title as he’s currently coming off worst in a three-way scrap with Sea The Stars and Galileo for second place behind Dubawi who is chasing his first title.

Who are the latest names to note?

Frankel’s latest crop of two-year-olds are waiting in the wings though and just beginning to flex their muscles. Four have won at the time of writing, all in recent weeks, and they’re all promising types, including the Andrew Balding pair Chaldean (90p) and Frankness (89p), winners at Newbury and Chester respectively, with the former holding a Champagne Stakes entry.

Hans Andersen (96p) is well entered up too for Aidan O’Brien and won in good style at the Curragh last time. Ballydoyle is yet to house a Group 1 winner by Frankel but that may well happen in time. Sandown maiden winner Arrest, an expensive foal purchase by the Juddmonte team and trained by John and Thady Gosden, is another useful prospect and was successful in the same race Westover had won the year before.

Among the as yet unraced Frankel two-year-olds who take the eye on breeding are Military Order, a brother to Adayar with Charlie Appleby, Ardent, a sister to recent Prix de Malleret winner Raclette trained by Andre Fabre, Shagpyle, a half-sister to King George winner Pyledriver for William Muir and Chris Grassick, Logician’s brother Foment who’s with John and Thady Gosden and Zarkala, a daughter of Arc winner Zarkava and trained by Francis-Henri Graffard.

First published 1200 BST on 07/08/22

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