Simon Rowlands: Frankel v Black Caviar will happen (against the clock)

Champions Day / Simon Rowlands / 13 October 2011 / 3 Comments

Frankel takes on the clock on Saturday.

"How fast could Frankel run? Well, here there is something of a target to be aimed at..."

Sectional timing at Ascot's British Champions Day gives racing enthusiasts a chance to measure Frankel's brilliance like never before. But will he match up to Black Caviar on the clock? Simon Rowlands gives guidance on what to expect...

The first British Champions Day, sponsored by Qipco, is almost upon us, and the dissenting voices have become strangely quiet now that they are faced with a galaxy of stars to make Professor Brian Cox smile. Even more.

Ascot Gold Cup winner Fame And Glory will be there, as will be 130-rated sprinter Deacon Blues, crack French fillies Moonlight Cloud and Immortal Verse, ex-Antipodean giant So You Think and globetrotting female Snow Fairy. To name but a few.

And then there's Frankel, the unbeaten colt which Timeform rates more highly than any other Flat horse, anywhere, since the 1970s.

Frankel has done extraordinary things in his eight successes, which have come by average margins of more than five lengths. But it ain't just what he's done, it's the way that he's done it, that's got results with racing fans.

His six-length win in the Two Thousand Guineas at Newmarket and his five-length win in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood indicated a talent that his bare superiority at the line could not adequately reflect.

In both instances, he took high-class rivals apart at a crucial stage of the race: early on in the Guineas, in which he was something like 10 lengths clear at halfway, and late on in the Sussex, in which he came home like a champion sprinter.

One of the more fascinating aspects of QBCD will be the first opportunity to measure Frankel against the clock like never before. The event will have sectional timing, meaning that, for a change, there will be no dispute about just HOW fast he was at all stages of Saturday's Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Last week's blog gave some background to sectional timing. The link at the end of this piece is to a video produced by the Armchair Jockeys (Rishi Persad, Lydia Hislop and Steve Mellish) that goes into further detail about sectionals at Ascot (or click here to watch video).

So, what can we expect from a sectional point of view at Ascot on Saturday?

The various broadcasters are playing their cards close to their chests, but it seems likely that by-furlong or by-quarter sectionals will be displayed during the race itself, along with running speeds, and that there will be a more comprehensive sectional debrief after the event.

Putting sectionals into context after the event is not as tricky as attempting to do the same while the action unfolds. The latter requires that you have a good idea of what overall race time the horses should achieve if the race is truly-run, as well as the sectionals which would give rise to that time.

Both challenges have been tackled on here in previous blogs, dealing with time analysis and with sectionals. It may seem a somewhat academic exercise, but, believe me, it will not be for in-running punters if sectional timing ever returns more widely to our courses.

By my reckoning, a Queen Elizabeth II Stakes run on good going could be expected to result in a time of about 98.7 seconds, and each increase of 1.0 in the going-stick reading (currently 8.8) would shave about 0.7 seconds off that total and a proportionate amount off any sectionals.

The knowledge of that projected time, viewed in conjunction with a small amount of test data and a much larger body of handheld sectionals over the years, points to the following "par" sectionals for the race.

AFTER 2F: 26.5 sec (38.2 mph previous furlong)
AFTER 4F: 50.3 sec (38.2 mph previous furlong)
AFTER 6F: 73.3 sec (39.2 mph previous furlong)
LINE: 98.7 sec (33.8 mph previous furlong)

Sectionals slower than that should indicate a steady pace, faster than that a fast pace (assuming conditions have not changed much).

It is not easy to break 11 seconds for a furlong (40.9 mph) at Ascot, which is a deceptively stiff track. But lesser horses than Frankel have done it off a steady pace, and Frankel himself almost certainly did it more than once at both Newmarket and Goodwood.

How fast could Frankel run? Well, here there is something of a target to be aimed at.

Frankel, the champion of the Northern Hemisphere, has never met Black Caviar, the Queen of the Southern Hemisphere and the second-best horse in the world. But the latter has been clocked sectionally throughout her career and once posted 10.34 seconds for 200m, according to Timeform Australia's Gary Crispe.

That is 10.40 seconds for a furlong on a pro-rata basis, or 43.3 mph. Can Frankel match that on Saturday? I wouldn't bet on it!

Comments (3)

1. Michael Turner | 14 October 2011

   Great reading and facts!! Looking forward to what i hope will be a day which will long stick in the memory.

   imo - Frankel is already the best ever 3yo miler to have graced the British turf, i wish the 'knockers' can see through their negative views.

   MT

2. Michael Otten | 12 February 2012

   Frankel indeed might be the greatest 3yo miler to have graced the British turf. To rate him as the best horse in the world is plain silly. He is not racing against any real quality. He is yet to prove himself over a number of races against top quality.
   His sectional times are not that great. He has been lucky.

3. Simon Rowlands | 13 February 2012

   Michael (Otten).

   If Timeform is being "plain silly" in rating Frankel the best horse in the world - something which was confirmed by his win in the Ascot race referred to above - then so are the collective official handicappers of all the major racing nations in the world, so are the Racing Post, and so, by implication, are bookmakers who offer him at odds on for a clash with the only other credible contender for that title, Black Caviar.

   That is not to say that we are all right and that you are wrong, just that it seems a bit, errrm, silly to suggest that we are all being "plain silly".

   In terms of his opposition, he met in that Ascot race horses who had recently: won Group 2s by 7 lengths and by 6 lengths (Excelebration); won Group 1s on her last two starts, most recently on merit from Goldikova (Immortal Verse); won a Group 2 (Dubawi Gold); and won a Group 1 and two Group 2s (Dick Turpin). And he beat them all easily despite the run of the race meaning that his superiority was probably understated.

   Earlier in the year he thrashed Canford Cliffs (a multiple Group winner) and two other older horses at Goodwood with a devastating turn of foot which implied sectionals not much over 10 sec/furlong soon after halfway. He took his rivals in the 2000 Guineas apart, apparently running extraordinary sectionals mid-race.

   I could go on.

   The thing is that every authority on the matter has come round to acknowledging that Frankel is a remarkably good horse, one deserving of a rating of at least 140 when translated to Timeform's level. If you disagree with that, then that's fine, but you are in a pretty small minority.

   There may be more mileage in querying whether Black Caviar is better than she has been rated and, possibly, even better than Frankel to date. Her wins have been of a consistently high calibre, even though her rivals have not always been, and she has never been pushed to her limit (which is also the case with Frankel when at his best).

   Hopefully we will get a chance to judge this on a racecourse in 2012 or to make much stronger comparisons between the two horses if they do not meet.

   Simon Rowlands