Frankel - Stud Career

Great run from EAST to be second in the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf on Friday night.

Anyway, the news we’ve all been waiting for - CRACKSMAN confirmed to Dalham Hall in Newmarket for 2019 for a fee of £25,000.

 

I find that a bit high. Nathaniel is at about the same price and I know who I'd prefer.

He'll end up a Champion Sire after I've said that

 

Enable to Cracksman, Bustino. Galileo grandsire on both sides and Nathaniel the sire of Enable. Best of both worlds? Both have superb conformation and really cover the ground. Enable's temperament would be a big positive

 

Enable to Frankel more likely?

 

Too close to Galileo for my liking, but you never know.

Dubawi perhaps?

 

Frankel’s two Melbourne Cup runners ran crackers with Finche finishing 4th and Rostropovich 5th.

 

Just about qualifies for line breeding, as opposed to inbreeding Princess. Quite happy to double up on Galileo but maybe from the next generation

 

PN is right I think in that Dubawi would be a sensible first cover as he is virtually an outcross to Enable, having only 2 Northern Dancer lines through more unusual sires (Shareef Dancer & Lyphard). He’s also getting on a bit.
Enable is inbred 2 x 3 to Sadler’s Wells so sending her to Frankel would add another line of SW as well as inbreeding 2 x 3 to Galileo. I wouldn’t do that but that’s just my opinion.
Interestingly Enable has no lines of Danzig. So I think a better alternative to Dubawi would be Kingman who would bring in Danzig through his son Green Desert and grandson Invincible Spirit. In addition it would introduce a Mr Prospector line.
The chance to breed to the Danehill line is also there. Perhaps War Front or his son Declaration of War would be possibilities.
My choice Dubawi or Kingman

 

I've shared a post on our FB page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1771656753062824/

Anyone aware of this one?

 

Just put in a request. Names the same there. No imagination me

 

OBLIGATE (Frankel x Responsible) made all on debut in France today.

 

Not sure if Bustino can answer this.......JG has a 2yo entered for Saturday called New King, owned by Qatar Racing, he is a full brother to 4yo Marine One, who has never won a race in his career, why would this 2yo be any different?

 

Don't forget that Line of Duty had 2 full brothers and a full sister who, between them,won 2 piddly races from 13 (I think) runs and he won at the Breeders Cup. Also wasn't Bullet Train a full brother to Frankel?

 

Thanks for that Ron, Bullet Train was not full brother, he was by Sadler's Wells x Kind making him three quarters, Noble Mission was the only full brother and he did quite well, not as well as his brother who was just exceptional. Time will tell.

 

Sorry Chaos have not been on here for a few days. Ron has basically answered your question, as just because you put A with B and get C doesn't mean it will repeat if you put A with B again.
When you breed a sire to a mare it is not just those names that count it is a large number of the sire's ancestors and dam's ancestors that play a part. I like to think it is a bit like putting 'n' balls for the sire in a drum and then putting 'n' balls for the dam in the drum (where the number n represents those ancestors) and then pulling n balls out to represent the new horse. The balls pulled out are likely to be wholly different if you did this twice. This may be a simplistic way to look at it, but it's the way I view it.
An example is perhaps Galileo's dam Urban Sea. To Sadler's Wells she produced the excellent Galileo and to other matings to him she produced the useful (but nowhere near the ability of Galileo) Black Sam Bellamy, Atticus (an unraced colt) and the similarly useful filly All Too Beautiful: all totally different.
When sent to Cape Cross, once, she produced a colt, Sea the Stars, who was arguably better than Galileo. Attempts are made to determine what components of these sires and this dam brought this about. Difficult...

Hope this helps, but some may think it a lot of balls.

 

Nicely put Bustino. I would like to use your description to explain * why line breeding with the occasional selective outcross is much preferred to simply using the latest top stallion on a mare. The more similar the ancestors are and/or the more the same stallion appears on both sides of the pedigree, the more chance there is that the "n" balls will be similar. This has it's downside if there is something not desirable in a stallion because it is very easy to double up on a fault. The ultimate aim of a serious breeder is to breed the perfect specimen. So once you have a good line it is best to keep that line going and to only occasionally outcross to something that will improve any weakness without introducing any new weaknesses. Although the perfect specimen may not be achieved, this is the only way to increase the chances. There is still an element of luck involved the risk is reduced. With a hotch potch pedigree it really is pot luck what you may get

* Not to you Bustino (Granny, eggs and all that)

 

Being by Frankel is actually a negative for me when considering ante post bets for the classics.

A lot of these "Dream" match ups in the breeding are doomed to failure. It's actually pretty rare for two greats to produce a great.

In general I find the Frankel's to disappoint moving forwards. There was a Jean Claude Rouget filly called Tasleya who scooted up at Deauville in the summer and she looked nailed on to improve from the 6F trip that day when upped to 7F next time but she never threatened and was well beaten off in the Prix Du Calvados. The Dam was a G3 winner and ran in the Newmarket Guineas in 2012, so it was disappointing to see no real progress from a highly taking debut.

For me, too many of the Frankel progeny fail to make progress with time and Mark Johnston's Elarqam was typical, as a colt who won his first two and was considered a live 2000 Guineas candidate by many. People on another forum I used to write on were not happy that I had ruled him out of the Guineas because of the Frankel factor but you can only go with your observations. Elarqam ran quite well in the Guineas without ever looking likely to win and it was a decent effort to perhaps build upon. Ironically, I ended up going with him in the Irish Guineas simply because I thought it was a poor renewal. On the day Elarqam was skinny enough at 2/1 but the way he ran was incredibly disappointing. Mark Johnston is not really a trainer for me to be backing other than very sparingly, so it was perhaps not a shock to see one of his jollies beaten but the colt was cooked after 4F and you had to wonder what the story was. The trainer then seemed clueless as to what to do with the horse. The Dante was mooted prior to the Curragh but after the disappointment it seemed like they wanted to wait and it was two months before he reappeared as a ropey looking 5/4 shot with plenty to prove over an extended 10F at York. Defeat there saw him drop back to 1m at Salisbury into Group 3 class. Mark Johnston said leading into the race that he would be disappointed if Elarqam finished second but as the Evens favourite, getting 6 lbs from the older horses he could do no better than 4th in a weak looking affair. Two horse, both described as "Freaks" during their careers had created a mediocre looking colt and that's all too often the reality in horse breeding.

For sure, Frankel will sire plenty of maiden winners but how many will go on to be decent? If you look at Galileo progeny in training with O'Brien the template is a low key first start and then big improvement on the second start, often followed by more improvement on the 3rd run. Then at 3YO they often come forward again and then go on to have great careers in some cases. That is simply not happening with Frankel offspring and they are not ones for me to be backing with a view to classics and big time races at 3YO. For me you need to be looking at the strength of the form with these Frankel youngsters, as good looks will not help them to be good next year and at ratings in the 70's there is two stone required to be decent and three stone needed to be top class. It's all well and good getting handicap winners and listed race winners but at £175,000 a pop, I suspect owners are looking for a bit more than that, particularly when he is being sent to the cream of the mares.

I did follow the Frankel youngsters at the start but seen too many false dawns and disappointments to be backing dream parings. Fair Eva and Herculean were both massive disappointments after a great debut but perhaps it didn't help that both went to Roger Charlton, who perhaps spends the hours between 10pm and 6am dreaming he was John Gosden.

 

Fair enough but as I implied earlier it isn't form that makes good pairings for breeding. It is compatible conformation through the ancestors. It is true of any breeding no matter how good the sire and/or dam is. Some aspects of conformation can not be ironed out by breeding. For example the conformation of a sprinter is different to the conformation of a stayer. Mix up the 2 and there is no telling what you will get. You might strike lucky and get a good colt but when using it as a sire you would have to rely on another big slice of luck. Sometimes my mouth waters at the sight of some pedigrees but without knowing the conformation and other attributes of the ancestors it is not a reliable guide as to what the resultant horse will achieve. Consequently, some horses that have big names in the pedigree turn out to be average at best. Frankel is no exception in that regard