Simon Cooper - Frankel

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020

Copyright © Simon Cooper 2020

Images © individual copyright holders

Race card © Racing Post

Cover image © CARL COURT/Stringer/Getty Images

Simon Cooper asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008307035

Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008307059

Version: 2020-06-02

Mum

Sorry I didn’t finish in time.

‘And Allah took a handful of southerly wind,

blew His breath over it, and created the horse.’

Bedouin legend

1 Cover

2 Title Page

3 Copyright

4 Dedication

5 Epigraph

6 Contents

7 Prologue

8 1 Genetic alchemy

9 2 A certain kindness

10 3 Creation day

11 4 Day 343

12 5 More Irish than English

13 6 The Pick

14 7 In training for training

15 8 A horse by a very special name

16 9 Warren Place

17 10 Getting into his head

18 11 The 6.35 at Newmarket

19 12 Intensive training

20 13 Economical with the actualité

21 14 Winter dreaming

22 15 Leading from the front

23 16 Arise Sir Henry

24 17 Duel on the Downs

25 18 The high-stakes gamble

26 19 Hidden dips

27 20 Flying the standard

28 21 Always summer

29 22 The end of days

30 Epilogue

31 The Newmarket 11

32 Keeneland to fenland

33 A six-figure loss

34 Last man standing

35 The worst Derby runner ever?

36 Up in the air

37 A 99 per cent write-down

38 The cruellest cut

39 All-weather man

40 Pinhooked

41 Scandal

42 Shadow man

43 Acknowledgements

44 The Frankel File

45 Pedigree

46 Race record

47 Timeline

48 Awards

49 Frankel by numbers

50 Picture Section

51 Bibliography

52 Index

53 About the Author

54 About the Publisher

Landmarks CoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

List of Pages iii iv v vii xi xii xiii xiv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72737475777879808182838485868789909192939495969799100101102103104105106107108109111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165167168169170171172173175176177178179180181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199201202203204205206207209210211212213214215217218219220221222223225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261 263264 265 267268269270 271272273274275276 277278279280281282283284285 286287288289290291 292293294295296297 298299300301302 303304305306307 308309310311312 313314315316317 318319320321 322323324325326327328 329330331333 338 334 339340 341342 343344345 346 347348349350351352353354

In horse racing, greatness is defined by speed. Being the second fastest counts for little. You have to win. And win. And keep on winning until every challenger of your generation is put to the sword. Such a thing so rarely happens that most people pass through life without the privilege of seeing such an animal. Occasionally a contender will arrive, burning up the turf until the dream of greatness is shattered in defeat; that precious cloak of invincibility torn to shreds by another.

On a rainy Suffolk evening, did our locally trained bay colt have any idea that he was about to embark on that path to the ultimate in racing greatness? To become the one against which all horses of the past, present and future would be judged and likely fall short. Let’s face it, he probably didn’t.

In truth, despite the remote possibility of such a thing, he had a whisper of a chance; he was bred if not to be great then at least to be fast. But that counts for only so much. Hundreds of thoroughbred racehorses debut each season with bloodlines as good as our horse. But breeding will only take you so far; the rest lies deep within, far beyond human intervention.

If you’d been a casual observer among the thousands gathered at Newmarket races on 13 August 2010, the third race of the night didn’t promise very much. In fact, it was a meeting far removed from the highest rank, designed more to draw a big holiday crowd than for quality racing. It was one of those humdrum, unregarded workaday fixtures which are the bread and butter of horse racing around the globe – excepting one horse.

You probably didn’t bother to go to the paddock after the second race to watch the horses parade for the next; few did. What was meant to be a balmy summer evening had turned cold with squally-soon-to-become-heavy rain. Trainers, jockeys, stable hands and officials were all scurrying around truncating the preliminaries to the shortest possible duration. The lawns in front of the stands were pretty well deserted; the crowds were jammed inside. A few hardy types sheltered under umbrellas to be close to the horses, but in truth they were few and far between. After all, this was just a minor race with a dozen horses, eight of which had never raced before and the remaining four had hardly set the world alight, without a win between them.

For our horse, this was to be his racecourse debut; he was one of that eight. But was he the special one? Maybe. There was a buzz about him. He’d lit up the training gallops. Been the gossip of this racing town. He’d been named in honour of one of the greatest trainers of modern times. Expectations were high. A sick man, his trainer, was being rejuvenated just by his very being. But this was a wretched night; his stable hand had even lost his shoe in the quagmire leading up to the start. If it all went wrong, there were at least excuses to hand.

By the time you’d extracted yourself from the bar, placed a bet and found a vantage point in the stands, the horses would have been long gone, gathered at the start a mile away. Without high-powered binoculars they would have been nothing more than a wet smudge on the otherwise empty horizon of Newmarket Heath that doubles as a racecourse. With binoculars you’d have seen jockeys hating the rain, crouched over their horses, keeping them calm with a circling routine. Had you been at the start, you would have heard the starter’s assistant complete the roll call as the handlers stepped forward to lead each horse in turn into the designated compartment of the starting stalls. A moment later, the loading complete, the gates of the stalls would spring open. The race was on.