Frankel: Everything you need to know

Features | 11^th February 2021

Today marks the 13^th birthday of the best racehorse of all time – Frankel. The 14-time unbeaten winner was given an official rating of 140 when he retired back in 2012 and no horse has since come close to matching his feat.

To celebrate, here is everything you need to know about the greatest racehorse of all-time.

1) He was trained by the legendary Sir Henry Cecil, and owned and bred by the late Saudi Prince Khalid bin Abdullah.

2) Frankel was born on February 11^th 2008 and is the son of the 2001 Epsom Derby winner Galileo. His dam, Kind, also won six races during her career.

3) This makes him an Aquarius – renowned as being trailblazers in their fields.

4) He was named after American trainer Bobby Frankel, who died in 2009 and therefore never saw the colt in action.

5) Frankel’s sheer presence scared off many would-be opponents and in his second race there were only two other runners. On average, he faced seven rivals per race but defeated 102 rivals overall.

6) In past eras, the fact that he had four white feet would have seen dealers at the sales turn down the opportunity to buy him, citing the old adage ‘four white feet, go home without him’.

7) It takes a lot to fuel a beast. In his prime, he would consumer 23lbs of Canadian Oats EVERY DAY. That’s the equivalent of 600 Weetabix and comes in at a whopping 35,000 calories.

8) In the Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood, Frankel was one of the shortest-priced runners in history when he began the race as the 1-20 favourite.

9) At top speed Frankel reached 43mph and can finish the 100m in 5.2 seconds – almost half Usain Bolt’s record time.

10) 294,000 people have seen Frankel race over his 14 victories, more than three times the number of attendees that see the FA Cup final at Wembley.

11) The average distance between Frankel and the second placed horses in all his 14 races was 5.4 lengths – approximately 43ft.

12) Frankel was the first horse in 60 years to be a champion at two, three and four years old and only the fourth in 100 years.

13) All 32,000 tickets available to bid Frankel farewell at QIPCO British Champions Day in 2012 were swiftly snapped up weeks in advance.

14) Frankel won multiple awards including Europe Champion from 2010 to 2012 and European Horse of the year in 2011 and 2012.

15) In total, he won £2,998,302 in prize money.

16) Frankie Dettori said: “he’s like Usain Bolt – a true athlete. When he gets on the track, he just blitzes everything else.”

17) Now retired, Frankel commands a fee of £175,000 a time to stud and he’s valued at approximately £150m which puts the majority of the best football players in the world to shame!

18) Frankel’s has had a highly successful career at stud with multiple Group 1 and Classic winners in countries around world, he also holds the record for the fastest sire in history to reach 40 Group winners.