When they present themselves there are certain experiences you simply have to undergo to make life complete, like rounding Cape Horn, watching the waters cascade over the Niagara Falls or flying on Concorde (although Mrs Oakley, I felt, rather overdid that last one when it was still possible by dancing that night with the captain in Cairo). I would add to the list, in the five months or so while it is still possible, the absolute must of seeing Frankel in action on a racecourse.
Owner Lady Beaverbrook once declared, ‘I have all the art I need but nothing makes my heart beat like a horse.’ And while in one way it is hard to think of something as muscular, mighty and masculine as a work of art, Frankel certainly is one. When jockey Tom Queally told him to go two furlongs out last Saturday, half a ton of horse quickened away from the second-best miler in Europe with an instant supercharged acceleration that was totally sublime.
The 14,000 of us who flocked to Newbury to see this racing phenomenon needed reassurance after the recent injury scare that could have ended his career. What we got, as he recorded his tenth victory from ten starts, was not just reassurance but also a polished, controlled, yet dominant display that was truly life-enhancing. How we are going to report his future appearances I am not quite sure: cricket-writers said of W.G. Grace in his time that he had exhausted the language of superlatives and Frankel has done that to racing-writers already.
Frankel’s trainer Henry Cecil is a steel-stemmed poppy who combines outward diffidence with inner certainty of purpose. Watching him struggle to contain his emotions after Frankel’s success was a reminder of the huge strain that is imposed on those who handle quality in sport, particularly when they are tending talents that have become public property.
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