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Frankel to Have Guineas Prep Race
21/03/11

Henry Cecil’s red-hot ante-post 2000 Guineas favourite Frankel looks almost certain to have a prep race before bidding to land a mass of long-range bets in the first colts’ classic of the season at Newmarket on April 30, writes Elliot Slater.

Frankel
© Racehorse Photos

The unbeaten son of Galileo cemented his reputation as an outstanding juvenile when easily accounting for Aidan O’Brien’s, Roderic O’Connor to land the Group 1 Dubai Dewhurst Stakes on the Rowley Mile course last October. Odds-on with many firms to land yet another classic for the peerless Henry Cecil and in racing tips Frankel can still be backed at 11/10 in a few places.

Speaking at Cheltenham on Thursday after saddling the winner of the charity race that concluded the third day of the National Hunt spectacular, Cecil confirmed that Frankel has done very well over the winter and that he couldn’t be more pleased with the way Prince Khaled Abdullah’s colt is progressing at Warren Place. Unlike many trainers these day who are content to send their runners direct to major races without a prior outing, Cecil believes that there is still no substitute for getting a run into a horse before a big race and suggested that Frankel is most likely to have his first outing of the term in the Group 3 Greenham Stakes at Newbury on April 16.

The pressure is very much on the veteran trainer as Frankel is seen by some as potentially one of the best horses to come out of Britain in many a long year and will be featured time again in horse racing tips. The winner of a Newmarket maiden on his racecourse bow last August, the now three-year-old won a Doncaster conditions event a month later by a stunning 13-lengths from Rainbow Springs, before blowing his rivals away in scoring by 10-lengths in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Ascot in late-September. His subsequent Dewhurst success sent him into the winter break as one of the hottest ante-post 2000 Guineas favourite in recent times.