Frankel’s bloodline connection with Makybe Diva
04 Jul 2012 | By Brian Russell Headed by The Queen and including a large contingent of Australians, among which was an enthusiastic Land newspaper tour party led by their ebullient longtime thoroughbred section editor Virginia Harvey, the huge crowd at the opening day of the England’s 2012 Royal Ascot Carnival two weeks ago saw one of the greatest performances in racing history.
In a cavalierish performance that was more awesome than the five lengths victory of unbeaten Ribot (16 races), a World Horse of the Century, in the King George & Queen Elizabeth at Royal Ascot 55 years ago, it saw the big strides of the modern superstar, Frankel, take him to an eleven lengths annihilation of a quality field in the Group1 Queen Anne over a mile.
It was the unbeaten 4-year-old’s eleventh win and seventh at Group1 level and added fuel to the opinion of responsible assessors that he is the best racehorses of all time.This could gain more credence in the near future if he wins, as contemplated, beyond a mile.
Frankel’s Royal Ascot win was the more enjoyable for the Australians at the course for they are familiar with his breeding, a cross of two sires, Galileo over a Danehill mare, used at the Coolmore studs in Ireland and the Hunter Valley.
Now a world class sire from his European achievement, Galileo is a Sadler’s Wells English Derby, Irish Derby and King George V1 & Queen Elizabeth winner, while deceased Danehill is a Danzig champion European 3YO Sprinter who has been a record nine times champion Australian sire and also a leader in Europe. His dual hemisphere use and world wide success, predictably, will see Danehill appear in more five generation pedigrees than any other sire in history.
Inbred 3x4 to Northern Dancer, Frankel is the second of the first three foals of Kind, a winner of six races in the five to seven furlongs range in Great Britain, five in succession at three and two Listed Stakes.The other two are Frankel’s year younger brother Noble Mission, a winner recently of the Newmarket Stakes (Listed event at 10 furlongs) and 2007 produced three-quarter Sadler’s Wells brother Bullet Train, winner at three of the Group 3 Lingfield Derby Trial (11 ½ furlongs), but last in the English Derby.
Last year Bullet Train ended up tailing the eight runner field home after being used as a pacemaker for Frankel in the Group1 Queen Elizabeth 11 Stakes at Ascot.
Frankel is nearly a three-quarter brother to much travelled Powerscourt, winner in America (Arlington Million-Gr.1), Ireland (Tattersalls Gold Cup-Gr.1) and England (Great Voltigeur Stakes-Gr.2), second at Group1 in England (at two) and Germany (at four) and third in the Irish St Leger and American Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Now at stud in Turkey, Powerscourt has been used earlier as a dual hemisphere sire in the United States and Chile. Eight of eleven stakes winners have been Chilean bred.
Powerscourt’s relationship to Frankel flows from his being a half-brother by Sadler’s Wells to Kind.They are the only two successful in stakes races among the seven winners produced by Rainbow Lake, a mare who won three successive middle distance races in England.
In one of them, the Lancashire Oaks, she turned in a Frankel-like exhibition to win by seven lengths. A review said ‘The devastating style in which Rainbow Lake sprinted clear in the last furlong and a half of the Lancashire Oaks had to be seen to believed.’
Like Frankel bred and raced by Khalid Abdulla, the Saudi Arabian Prince who heads the Juddmonte thoroughbred empire, and trained in England by Sir Henry Cecil, Rainbow Lake is by the stamina endowing Blushing Groom sire Rainbow Quest, himself a winner of the Prix de l’Arc deTriomphe and Epsom Coronation Cup and placegetter in the Irish and French Derbys.
Although he supplied 530 winners, including 59 stakes winners, the 2007 deceased Rainbow Quest had to wait until his last crop, one got when he was 26, to sire a winner of Europe’s premier staying race, the Gold Cup over two mile four furlongs at the Royal Ascot carnival. It came this year with the honours going to his 4-year-old grey gelded son Colour Vision, his first Group1 prize cheque.
Frankel and Powerscourt are the only performers under the first five dams to win or place at Group1 level, but the family has been the source of many quality performers since 1980. One of the best has been Desert King (IRE), the 1997 Irish Two Thousand Guineas and Derby winner now a resident at Bombora Downs, Bittern, Victoria after originally shuttling.
Famous as the sire of the sire of Hall of Fame inducted record three times Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva, Desert King is by the same sire, Danehill, as Frankel’s dam Kind. In addition, Frankel’s fifth dam Nasira (Persian Gulf – Circassia, by Sir Cosmo) was a half-sister to Nymphet (by Nearula), the fourth dam of Desert King.