Frankel gallops into history at Goodwood
Thursday 2 August 2012
By Geoffrey Riddle
1 Frankel (T Queally) 1-20 Fav
2 Farhh (L Dettori) 11-1
3 Gabrial (P Hanagan) 80-1
Frankel became the first dual winner of the Sussex Stakes yesterday with an authoritative victory in the Qipco-sponsored contest at Glorious Goodwood.
Frankel despatched his three rivals with consummate ease under Tom Queally to defeat Farhh by a record six lengths. As if it matters, Gabrial was three and a quarter lengths back in third while Bullet Train was last.
By defending his title, Frankel extended his record over a mile to seven wins and his winning tally to 12 in all.
His career at a mile is now over and Khalid Abdullah’s colt will line up in the International Stakes, sponsored by his owner’s breeding operation, Juddmonte, at York in three weeks.
When asked whether Frankel would improve for the step up to ten furlongs, Queally shot back: “Can he get much better?” How much better do you want him to get? He’s turning Group One races in to an absolute procession so he doesn’t really have to improve. If he is as good as he is now he won’t have to improve and should be good enough.”
Frankel was first in to the parade ring after Bullet Train refused in the preliminaries but when it mattered Frankel’s half-brother set the pace as soon as the gates opened.
For once Farhh broke masterfully under Frankie Dettori and was up with Bullet Train early on before settling behind the 1-20 favourite.
Bullet Train may well live in Frankel’s shadow but Ian Mongan increased the pace perfectly mid-race aboard the Group 3 winner.
At the halfway point Bullet Train set fractions of 12.99sec, 12.22, and 11.1 two furlongs from home, which saw Frankel slingshot in to the lead with two fractions below 11 seconds to gallop into the record books.
“You don’t have to ask him to do an awful lot and he put distance between then without doing anything major. He just does it so easily,” Queally added.
“It felt like a piece of work to him there and it was exactly what he needed. It was a nice prep for his next race.”
The margin of victory was 4-5 with Paddy Power and Frankel eclipsed the record margin of victory of five lengths that he equalled 12 months ago when comprehensively outpointing Canford Cliffs. Kris also won the Sussex Stakes by five lengths in 1979, as did Brigadier Gerard in 1971.
He also became the shortest-priced winner of the race, first run in 1841. Petite Etoile was sent off the 1-10 favourite in 1959 to defeat five rivals, while Frankel was as short as 1-20 to account for Farhh, Gabrial and Bullet Train. Victory Spin remains the shortest-priced winner in Britain after being sent off the 1-66 favourite at Beverley in May 1999.
None of this appeared to be a surprise to the Godolphin team, who took the defeat in their stride.
"We expected to finish second and that's what he did," Simon Crisford, Godolphin's racing manager, said. "Farhh has run a good race but the winner was much too good for him. That wasn't a surprise, we didn;t have to wait for today's race to find it out."
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