Greatness in the end for Frankel

RACING:BBC Ascot broadcast had small audience for horse hailed as greatest, writes CHRIS COOK

FRANKEL SPENT yesterday under wraps and out of sight at the Warren Place stable of his trainer, Henry Cecil, whose task now is to let the air gently out of the colt’s tyres in preparation for a career as a stallion.

“He’s been on high-octane fuel, really, in conjunction with the exercise he does,” said Lord Grimthorpe, who speaks for the colt’s owner, Khalid Abdulla, “and, as he does less exercise, he’ll need less high-octane fuel.

“The real point is to get him to the stage where he’s relaxed and is going to get used to a different life. That’ll take a week or so, maybe longer, until everyone’s happy and then he’ll come over to Banstead.” Banstead Manor, Abdulla’s stud farm, is about five miles from Cecil’s yard and the place where Frankel was born.

No matings have yet been planned but Abdulla is likely to match Frankel with many of his own high-class mares when the mating season begins in February. Grimthorpe has already acknowledged that Frankel will be offered to outside mares at a fee in the region of £100,000.

In the meantime, like the sport in general, Cecil must adjust to life without the horse who has been the centre of his attention for the past three years, an animal that, as he said last week, has helped him to deal with his cancer by providing “an inspiration and challenge which I needed so badly”.

However, racing’s hope that Frankel fever might introduce a large number of new fans to the sport will be undermined by the news of disappointing viewing figures for his final appearance, in the Champion Stakes at Ascot on Saturday. The race was the highlight of a broadcast lasting several hours on BBC1 and followed weeks of build-up but resulted in an average audience of 1.1 million, only 100,000 more than on the same day last year.

The audience peaked at 2.2 million, an 18.6 per cent share and a great improvement on the 1.3 million peak from Champions Day 2011 but still a low number for the departure of a horse hailed as the greatest in history. The broadcast was also the last coverage of flat racing by the BBC – Channel 4 having secured the rights to cover the entire sport from next year – and that may have been a factor behind the poor figures, according to Rod Street, chief executive of Racing For Change, whose remit is to popularise the sport.

“I don’t think we had very much in the way of aggressive promotion during the build-up from the BBC,” he said. “Perhaps, because it’s their last day covering flat racing, it is arguable whether they went to town on it in the same way they would have done for the Grand National in years gone by. I think you can expect a hell of a lot more promotion in the build-up [by Channel 4] leading to the day next year.”

The BBC’s press office offered no comment on the viewing figures. Street was much more encouraged by the general media response to Frankel’s 14th consecutive success, reporting that the story led sports bulletins on BBC Radio 4 and Five Live on Saturday evening, while there was “remarkable” coverage in yesterday’s newspapers.

“Last year we achieved 3,000 pieces of editorial coverage for the British Champions Series,” Street said, referring to the series of major races through the flat season which led to Saturday’s climax, an initiative that was begun last year. “This year, even before Champions Day, that number was 6,000. It’s astonishing and it is led by Frankel.

“I think it is important to note that, by having the Champions Series and Champions Day, as well as the Racing For Change PR function, we’ve given ourselves a structure that has enabled us to make the best of this superstar. I think if Frankel had come along a couple of years earlier, we might have ended up ruing the fact that we’d missed a golden opportunity to capitalise on his popularity.

“All of the coverage we’ve had can only be good for the sport. There were kids watching horse-racing for the first time on Saturday and it’s given the sport a collective boost to its self-confidence that it can promote itself better. Plus, we’ve created a brand new yardstick and for years we’ll be asking ourselves, could this be the new Frankel?”