Frankel to end arguments in Dewhurst Stakes
Two-year-olds are supposed to be about promise but the Dubai Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket is set up to deliver something emphatic.
It can be easy to be seduced by big names and forget horses who are themselves capable performers – this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup demonstrated that emphatically when Imperial Commander gate-crashed the party – but this race looks like a three-way shoot-out between Dream Ahead, Saamidd and Frankel.
Of the three, Dream Ahead has the clear edge in terms of racecourse form. Unbeaten in three starts he moved up from an ordinary Nottingham maiden to win the Group One Prix Morny at Deauville in August and then underlined that there was no fluke about that victory when he won the Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket two weeks ago.
The quality of that form was franked by the fact that he beat Approve by nine-and-a-quarter lengths and the same colt had been only two-and-a-quarter lengths behind Saamidd when he won the Group Two Champagne Stakes at Doncaster on St Leger day.
Saamidd is likely to be an improver but he will have to be and the same needs to be true of Frankel.
If hype could win horses races this colt would be even shorter in the market than he already is. His position is partly due to the fact that Henry Cecil has said that he is the best juvenile he has trained for 35 years but also for the manner of his victory in the Group Two Royal Lodge Stakes at Ascot last month.
Beating Klammer by 10 lengths is not conclusive evidence on its own, but it was the manner of victory that impressed; the way that Frankel eased round his field on the bend and then pulled clear, unextended, marks him out as something special.
The same can be said of Dream Ahead, who won the Middle Park by nine lengths, but that was only 15 days ago and there has to be a chance that he cannot back up quite that quickly.
It was only three weeks ago, on the same day that Frankel won the Royal Lodge, that Poet’s Voice made the step up to Group One level, when he won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Now he can make the step up from a mile to 10 furlongs in the Emirates Airlines Champion Stakes.
He beat Rip Van Winkle by a nose, which gives Poet’s Voice a slight edge over Twice Over – on his run behind Rip Van Winkle in the Group One International Stakes at York in August. And the breeding of Poet’s Voice - by Dubawi out of a Chief´s Crown mare – suggests that he has the stamina for the job.
Stamina will be even more of an issue in the two-and-a-quarter-mile totesport.com Cesarewitch and My Arch still looks on a handy mark and could be even better over this trip than he has been over two mile.
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