With a Timeform rating of 147, unbeaten champion Frankel is rated as the greatest racehorse ever.
Now, the five-year-old stallion is facing perhaps his greatest test, as he marks the start of what the team hope will be a £200 million life at stud.
Success at stud is by no means guaranteed no matter how great a horse’s race track performance has been. Quickly comes to mind is another former unbeaten champion Lammtarra.
In his 3YO season, the Godolphin-owned Lammtarra won three Group One races in 1995 and was voted the Cartier Three-Year-Old European Champion Colt. He won the Epsom Derby in record time, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Eventually he was sold to Japanese breeders for $30 million to stand at Arrow Stud in the Hidaka area for a stud fee of £30,000. His offspring met with very limited success as he had only ever sired 6 stakes winners, and his fee was reduced later to £2,500.
Although Frankel’s fertility is unproven, breeders from around the world are queuing up with blue-blooded mares to visit the stallion at his new home, Banstead Manor in Newmarket, his Saudi owner Prince Khalid Abdullah’s stud just a few kilometres from the stables where the equine superstar spent his racing career with trainer Sir Henry Cecil. So much so that Frankel has been fully booked for the next three years.
For each encounter, or ”cover” by Frankel, the fee is £125,000. He could cover up to three mares a day, making the son of Galileo the most valuable stallion in the world.