Frankel’s ending chapter opens new avenues for the Aidan O’Brien star, Excelebration
The training abilities of the hall mark trainer, Aidan O’Brien, can ever hardly be doubted or challenged. Even if his conditioned, Camelot, lost the final leg of the Triple Crown, then there was no other stable that could even produce a possibility, let
alone a winner.
The misery and disappointment that was caused by the loss of the greatest horse racing accomplishment, was soothed to some extent by the rising star of the stable, Excelebration.
Just when out of the shadows of the mighty Frankel, Exceed And Excel’s colt started excelling in the races that the connections chose for him. Even when racing against the top miler of the world, Frankel, Excelebration never lost without a justified battle.
His racing expertise came into the limelight after the connections resorted not to race him against the now 14 out of 14 starts winner once Excelebration had lost five races in rivalry with the highest rated thoroughbred in the world.
Two races without being the punch bag for Frankel, and the four-year-old Irish bay colt struck a back-to-back, proving his phenomenal ability and passion.
He won the Group 1 Prix Du Haras De Fresnay-Le-Buffard – Jacques Le Marois on 12th August, 2012 at Deauville over a mile, defeating Cityscape by 1 ¼ lengths.
The bay colt then won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on 20th October at Ascot race course over a mile. Last year, he lost the winner’s prize money of the race by four lengths against the unparallel Frankel.
The winning trainer said: "We are delighted. He's been working brilliant. He's got an awful lot of speed and class, and Joseph was confident. The lads did a great job with him at home. We rode him different that day (behind Frankel in the Queen Anne). We
probably learnt a lot and he's progressing. If he's OK and everybody is happy we'll go to the Breeders' Cup."
O'Brien added: "He was a good two-year-old and three-year-old and it has taken us a while to get to know him. He is getting quicker and heavier with every run. I had a fair idea what Joseph wanted to do and he had a lot of confidence in the horse.”
The back-to-back winner was previously trained by Marco Botti.
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