Guineas winner Frankel will be protected and kept clear of York

Trainer Henry Cecil was clearly looking to the three-year-old’s future well-being when confirming that Frankel, brilliantly ridden by Tom Queally, will reappear in the blue riband Investec Epsom Derby or the St James’s Palace Stakes, Royal Ascot’s feature race for one-mile champions.

Requiring a horse of such a fragile mental disposition to perform at his optimum in the Guineas, the Dante and then the Derby – three premier races in five weeks – would simply be asking too much of Frankel who has been afforded a higher rating than the imperious Sea The Stars achieved during his magnificent run of success in 2009.

This relentless galloper, whose Guineas pacemaker was rendered redundant after just two strides on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile on Saturday, is the son of Galileo, the 2001 Epsom Derby victor.

Such illustrious breeding would suggest that Frankel, now unbeaten in six starts, could add the Derby to his Guineas crown. But Galileo’s sire Sadler’s Well, who died last week, was a champion miler and it is over this shorter distance that Cecil believes his stable star will excel in time.

In advising that Frankel will miss the Dante, the premier Derby trial, on Thursday week, Cecil also implied that this equine flying machine is a far-from certain runner at Epsom where the undulations may not suit his temperament and long stride.

Cecil, who was winning his 25th Classic and his first 2000 Guineas since Wollow prevailed in 1976, insists the final call will be down to owner Prince Khalid Abdullah whose other Derby prospect World Domination, a stablemate of Frankel, is an intended Dante runner after an emphatic winning debut at Newbury.

“The final decision will be the Prince’s so we’ll discuss it with him and we’ll try to work out the best thing for the horse,” he said. “The Dante will probably come too close anyway, so I’m not going to test him in the Dante to see if he gets the Derby trip.

“The two options are he’ll either go for the St James’s Palace or the Derby. Nothing has been confirmed, but I wouldn’t personally back him for the Derby.”

Cecil’s caution is understandable, given the horse’s future prospects both on the track and from a breeding perspective. Time, however, is not on Frankel’s side given the tendency for Flat champions, like Sea The Stars, to be sent to stud at the end of their three-year career.

It is also unclear whether this scintillating six-length victory – the second biggest winning margin in the race’s 202-year history behind the Gordon Richards-inspired Tudor Minstrel in 1947 – has left its mark on Frankel.

The only other equally imposing performance in a major race in recent times has been Denman’s electrifying 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup triumph when the Sam Thomas-ridden liver chestnut pulled clear of a quality field with a circuit to go. This stamina-sapping performance took the victor a year to recover from.

However, 26-year-old Queally, who was recording his first Classic win, suggested that the freakish Frankel had plenty to spare after he caught the Guineas field napping by powering into the lead once the starting stalls opened.

“I was in full control of what I wanted to do,” said the jockey whose foresight in making the running deserves ‘ride of the year’ honours but would have been vilified if the tactics had backfired.

“He loves galloping. He put the rest of the field to shame. He was just idling in the last furlong – he needed other horses for company. I have never sat on anything like him. And I probably never will again.”

Queally’s audacious tactics took everyone by surprise, but he and Cecil both felt there was little point in breaking his colt’s powerful stride.

“He’s got a long stride on him and I didn’t want to put him out of it,” explained the winning trainer whose resurgence, and fight against cancer, has prompted calls for him to be knighted.

“In the last furlong and a half he thought he’d done enough and he was waiting for everyone else. You always get nervous before a race like that and worry things could go wrong.

“He was very good in the paddock and he hacked down to the start like an old hunter.”

Cecil also reported that Frankel suffered few after-effects from this ferocious gallop that would have been a course record if he had not been running into a significant headwind.

“He’s fine this morning. Obviously any race takes a bit out of a horse and I’ll have to feel my way back with him carefully and quietly. There’s no rush at all,” he added.

“His way of running with that long stride looks exhausting, but he’s well within himself. He probably didn’t have as hard a race as people think.”

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