Features / David Johnson / 28 September 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet View Market

Racing's latest potential superstar maintained his unbeaten record with a 10-length win in Saturday's Royal Lodge and earned various superlatives from the 'experts'. His trainer went with 'exciting', whilst others have suggested he is 'awesome', 'extraordinary' and 'exceptional'. The question is though, how awesome? How extraordinary? How exceptional is he compared to his contemporaries and other recent generations. At Timeform, it's our job to make that assessment in quantitative terms.

"Frankel is impossible to oppose for the rest of the year and he possesses more than enough speed to cope with a drop back in trip to 7f to win the Dewhurst."

Frankel was rated 115P going into the Royal Lodge but his rating has been raised to 129p on the back of it. That is a very high rating for a juvenile, remarkably so for one that has yet to be tested in Group 1 company, but it's one we think he has fully earned. Recent champion juveniles like New Approach (127) and Teofilo (126) were below that level despite their unbeaten juvenile seasons including two Group 1s. In fact a rating of 129p is the highest given to a juvenile since Xaar was rated 132 in 1997.

The bare form of the Royal Lodge is rather held down by the small field and a gallop that was on the steady side until around halfway. This explains why the timefigure is just 112, which if anything, is slightly below par for the race. Equally with the pace on the steady side, it means the field haven't been able to stretch themselves out as well as they would have done, and had the race been truly run, Frankel would surely have won by even further than what is already a wide winning margin. Race standards for the last five Royal Lodges suggest a rating of 123/125/120/124/119 as a bare form figure for Frankel and we settled on 122 for the race. That figure has the runner-up Klammer matching his previous best form with the rest of the field at least 5 lb below form.

It is after a study of the sectional times at Ascot, for which I am grateful to my colleague Simon Rowlands who has written various blogs on this subject which you can read on this site, it was clear that Frankel can be rated as value for extra over the bare result. When looking at sectional times we can express a horses' finishing speed as a percentage of their average overall speed. At Ascot on Saturday the three races over a mile on the round course suggest that optimum finishing speed was around 100%. Frankel's finishing speed was much faster than that at around 107.5%. Using this information we can make an adjustment in pounds that is derived from the difference between actual finishing speed percentage and optimum finishing speed percentage. It is this adjustment which tells us how much over the bare form Frankel was value for and this where the extra applied to his rating comes from.

Frankel is impossible to oppose for the rest of the year and he possesses more than enough speed to cope with a drop back in trip to 7f to win the Dewhurst. His physique is also encouraging to suggest he's no mere two-year-old. A big, strong, colt, he's very much the type to train on well and with his stamina not in doubt, normal improvement throughout the winter would make him a formidable Guineas prospect.

Tags: 2000 Guineas, Frankel, New Approach, Newmarket, Royal Lodge Stakes, Teofilo, Xaar