FRANKEL MAY have been the outstanding three-year-old of 2011 but the odds look to favour Ireland providing the stars of the 2012 Classic generation with Camelot rated Europe’s joint-best juvenile of last year in the World Thoroughbred Rankings (WTR) released yesterday.
Aidan O’Brien’s brilliant Racing Post Trophy winner is already a hot favourite for this year’s Epsom Derby and heads an outstanding crop of Irish talent that dominated Britain’s top two-year-old races in 2011.
As well as Camelot’s Racing Post success, which earned him an official mark of 119 in the WTR, his stable companion Crusade (113) landed the Middle Park Stakes and Jim Bolger’s Parish Hall (117) managed to beat Ballydoyle’s National Stakes winner Power (117) in the Dewhurst. Lightening Pearl (111) also secured a maiden Group One success for Ger Lyons in the Cheveley Park Stakes.
Overall it has resulted in six Irish-trained horses appearing among the WTR’s top 10-rated European juveniles of 2011, with a massive 20 of the top 52-rated horses based here.
Camelot’s 119 places him alongside the top French prospect Dabirsim while O’Brien’s unbeaten Moyglare heroine Maybe is Europe’s joint top-rated filly on 116 along with the Prix Marcel Boussac winner Elusive Kate.
Overall though the WTR rankings are dominated by Frankel who has been rated alongside the outstanding Sea The Stars at 136 after an unbeaten campaign that saw Henry Cecil’s superstar win the 2,000 Guineas by six lengths and earn his top rating by beating Canford Cliffs in the Sussex Stakes.
It is the highest-rated international classification mark for a miler since El Gran Senor (138) in 1984 although the international handicappers were at pains yesterday to stress how ratings from previous years would be lower under modern calculating techniques.
Garry O’Gorman, the senior Irish handicapper, said Frankel can still be considered the equal to those giants of the past. “You have to go back to El Gran Senor 27 years ago to find a comparable miler, but it is acknowledged that levels of earlier editions were running at a higher level,” he said. “Even though El Gran Senor was 138, to be blunt, he should not have been as high as 138. I would hate to say Frankel and Sea The Stars would have to improve to be talked about in the same breath as those other horses.”
The British Horseracing Authority’s handicapper Dominic Gardiner-Hill added: “I don’t think you could say with any degree of confidence he wasn’t inferior or superior to Sea The Stars. If it was a handicap, I wouldn’t want to give either weight.”
That 136 still makes Frankel the clear top-rated horse in world racing ahead of what is expected to be a memorable four-year-old campaign which is expected to begin in Newbury’s Lockinge Stakes before a likely step up to 10 furlongs.
Australia’s top sprinter Black Caviar is rated the world’s second best on 132 and she in turn is clear of the 128-rated Cirrus Des Aigles and the Arc winner Danedream. The highest-rated horse in Ireland last year was the ex-Aussie So You Think on 126, the same mark he was rated at in Australia in 2010.
Black Caviar received glowing praise from the handicappers. “You have to go back as far as Pebbles and Miesque in the 1980s and arguably she is the best filly or mare we’ve ever seen,”
Garry O’Gorman said. “It took a handicap to show how good she is, as she gave weight to fillies and colts in the Newmarket Handicap and that form worked out well.”
