Op/Ed: How Did Frankel Fare With His First Runners?

It could readily be argued that Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) has been the most important horse in the modern history of British Flat racing. Not only did his phenomenal achievements on the track attract untold numbers of eyes to the sport for all the right reasons, he effectively launched British Champions Day on the road to success by himself, starring in the first two years of that meeting. Remarkably, he is now doing much the same job for the thoroughbred breeding industry.

Never before has there been such expectation and excitement surrounding a sire's first runners on the track as there has been this year with Frankel's offspring. His progeny were scrutinised to an unprecedented extent, with every runner that represented him generating headlines regardless of whether they won or lost. With so many of his runners being out of well-known racemares or broodmares, he has stoked the levels of interest in the bloodstock side of the sport amongst casual racing fans to all-new levels.

With the turf seasons in Great Britain and Ireland now behind us, perhaps now is a fair time to step back, cut through the hyperbole and assess just how well Frankel's first runners have fared. However, finding a fair way to assess their performance presents a challenge in itself.

While there were 18 other sires based in Great Britain and Ireland that had 50 or more live foals in their first crops in 2014, it would simply be unfair to compare the performance of their progeny to that of Frankel's on a like-for-like basis. With a nomination fee of £125,000, Frankel was only accessible to a select few breeders, yet he still produced more live foals than all bar three of the other 18 first-season sires of note. Even more significantly, the quality of mares that produced Frankel's foals were on a completely different level to what his rival sires mated with. Thus, perhaps it is only fair to assess Frankel out on his own and use a combination of the best individual figures as well as the average figures achieved in each category by the remaining 18 first-season sires of note to give some context as to what he has achieved relative to the rest.

Of course, everyone will have their favoured means by which to judge a sire's performance. Number of winners, number of stakes performers and prize money won are all popular means of measurement, but for me, assessment of the ratings achieved by their progeny is the soundest way to assess a sire. In this case, I have used Racing Post Ratings and while I usually use 90+ and 105+ to assess a sire's progeny, given that in this case it is only 2-year-olds being dealt with, I have reduced these parameters to 85+ and 100+. All of the statistics are correct for races that took place in Europe up to the end of October. 

Click the table to enlarge:

The first number that immediately jumps off the page is just how relatively few of Frankel's progeny made it to the track prior to November. Given the depth of coverage that his runners generated throughout the season, it is remarkable to think that just under 32% of his entire crop made it to the track in Europe up to that point.

Despite having what is the second-lowest percentage of runners-to-foals of the 19 first-season sires analysed, he still provided the highest number of RPR85+ and RPR100+ runners amongst all of the first-season sires. For 42.9% of his runners to have exceeded RPR85 and 17.1% of them to achieved RPR100+ is a remarkable achievement. That the closest rival to him in these fields produced just 25% and 10.8% of such runners respectively puts those numbers into context.

While they are not included in the above statistics, it should also be noted that the handful of Frankel's progeny that have run in Japan have been performing well, most notably with 'TDN Rising Star' Mi Suerte (Jpn) winning a Group 3 contest earlier this month.

Inevitably, some commentators will focus on Frankel's failure to produce a Group 1 winner or even a runner that was placed in a Group 1, but the rate at which he produced RPR100+ runners in his first crop of 2-year-olds suggests that it will only be a matter of time before he gains his first Group 1 winner.

While Frankel has already impressed with his first racecourse representatives, next year promises to be even more intriguing. Given that he is a son of Galileo that was at his very best as a 4-year-old, hopes will be very high that Frankel's progeny will be even better as 3-year-olds. One must also consider that over 70 of his first foals have yet to appear on the track. These include bluebloods such as colts out of Dar Re Mi (GB), Zagora (Fr) and Queen's Logic (Ire) and fillies out of Finsceal Beo (Ire), Midday (GB), Alexander Goldrun (Ire), Danedream (Ger) and Dancing Rain (Ire) to name just a few.

However, it must also be remembered that Frankel proved to be a serious challenge for Sir Henry Cecil as a 3-year-old. He was a free-goer as a juvenile, but he all but bolted in the G1 2000 Guineas and put in another upside-down performance in the G1 St James's Palace S. that almost saw him beaten by a much inferior rival. It took one of the finest training performances of recent decades from Sir Henry Cecil to control Frankel's innate exuberance and send him back in the right direction after those performances.

With many of Frankel's progeny showing the same free-going nature in their races that Frankel himself did, it will be intriguing to see how they progress from two to three and how their various trainers deal with the challenges that they present. While the early signs have been very promising indeed, a much fuller picture will be revealed on the racetracks of Europe in 2017.

Next week, detailed analysis of how each of the other 18 first-season sires of note fared with their first runners in 2016 will be revealed and the results are likely to intrigue and surprise in equal measure.