No set of first-season results has been more anticipated by the bloodstock community than those of Frankel. Other highly prized stallions have come and gone, but, in the media age, the scrutiny on every one of his runners in 2016 has been unparalleled.
This, of course, is only a natural function of being one of the greatest racehorses of all time and a son of one of the greatest sires in Galileo. But, as a result of the intensity of interest, Frankel’s stallion career almost certainly won’t quite live up to the hype, as Francis Galton warns us.
There are a few weeks to go yet before 2016 is in the books, but here is a look at Frankel’s data in the freshly minted TRC Global Rankings:
Rank | Last | Name | Modal Country | Rnrs | Runs | IV | tRPR | G1s | G2s | G3s | Pts | Change |
135 | 141 | FRANKEL | GB | 8 | 15 | 0.96 | 81.83 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 945 | 0 |
Frankel’s stock are yet to crack it at the highest level, but Queen Kindly (G2 Lowther Stakes, York), Fair Eva (G3 Princess Margaret Stakes, Ascot), Frankuus (G3 Prix de Conde, Chantilly), Toulifault (G3 Prix d’Aumale, Chantilly) and Mi Suerte (G3 Fantasy Stakes, Kyoto) have all won at a lower level.
TRC Global Rankings uses the results of every group and graded race to derive the classifications – and nothing below this level. A full assessment of Frankel’s prospects for next year requires a lot more than this. However, we thought it might be interesting to plot his career trajectory in our system, then compare it with a few other young stallions we really like.
In our view, Frankel’s first season of runners does not quite match that of Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist’s sire Uncle Mo the previous year, but, employing data exogenous to the rankings algorithm, we would expect him to climb the rankings at least as quickly. Uncle Mo is currently our #16 stallion, but our projection for Frankel is still more bullish. We would not expect a top 10 billing by this time next year, but it would be no surprise to see the Juddmonte Farms great in the #12 – #14 range, a shade above Lope De Vega, in fact, who rests at #15.
Zoffany, who is a contemporary of Frankel (he was the horse who got the closest to him in any race on the track) but entered stud a year before him, was a more precocious performer and got off to a really good start with his first runners, reaching #145 at the end of his first season of runners in 2015. He is now #42, but we would expect Frankel to rank higher than this, given the likelihood his runners should make a lot of physical improvement next year, plus the support of a stellar cast of mares producing his 2017 juveniles.
For his part, Lope De Vega is an excellent young sire. He has a reputation for producing soft-ground runners, but so did Sadler’s Wells and it did not stop him.
The consistent Siyouni – currently #24 – doesn’t match up to the other top producers in this feature, but he is seriously good and will continue to climb the rankings.