The Bet Bank

We can only dream about what would have happened if last year’s champ had taken on the new star

So Harbinger’s not a bad sort, then. A record winning margin and a new course record time in Britain’s most prestigious Flat race … yes, that qualifies as pretty good.

How good, though? Timeform’s initial reaction was to rate him 142, behind only Sea Bird, Brigadier Gerard and Tudor Minstrel since the second world war. After sleeping on it, they inched him back to 140, just behind Mill Reef and level with Dancing Brave, Sea The Stars and three others.

Putting a number on a horse’s level of ability is, like American Football, not a game I would ever wish to play, but I’m very happy to watch others give it a go and I reserve the right to yell things from the sidelines once in a while. It seems to me that Timeform and the BHA’s official handicappers do this kind of thing as well as it can be done.

It is clearly a very inexact science but it’s important that someone tackles it with vigour and integrity because our ability to compare one horse with another is a large part of racing’s appeal. In jump racing, two classy horses that kept beating everything else would eventually clash on the racecourse, as Denman and Kauto Star have now done three times. In Flat racing, however, we really need those numbers because there is every chance that the best horses will never meet, even if they are the same age.

Harbinger was born a little over three weeks before Sea The Stars in the spring of 2006 but, because they progressed at different paces, they didn’t race against each other. Sea The Stars had his astonishing year, winning a Group One each month from May to October, and went to stud with a huge reputation. Three weeks after his final race, Harbinger was beaten by six lengths in a Group Three.

Surely no one imagined at that stage that the two horses would have an identical rating nine months later. When I suggested that Sea The Stars should have stayed in training, the counter-argument was made by readers that he had nothing left to prove and that there would be little joy in seeing him hack up in every Group One this summer. My thought was that there might be a good horse among this year’s three-year-olds who could challenge him, but our unpredictable sport has instead given us an older runner whose talent has grown to the point where he would surely give last year’s champ a proper test.

Wouldn’t you love to see that race, Harbinger against Sea The Stars? Surely it is now clear that the decision of Sea The Star’s owners to retire him at the end of his three-year-old year was a miserable thing to do, a sorry and selfish act that has undermined an entire sport and denied its followers the chance to glimpse greatness. In fairness, it should be conceded that similarly selfish decisions have been made by the owners of most top three-year-olds in recent decades.

Flat racing, as we are all aware, is searching for a way to improve its appeal. My view is that nothing would be more likely to achieve that end than ensuring the best horses continue to race until at least the end of their four-year-old seasons.

Of course, it is hard to imagine any kind of strict rule that would force owners to keep their horses in training. Andrew Franklin, who produces Channel 4′s racing coverage, suggested to me in a recent interview that it could be a condition of entry to Group One races that the placed horses have to race until they are at least five, but it’s hard to imagine how you could make that stick without international agreement. And any such rule would have to bar injured four-year-olds from working as stallions, even if they were unfit to race, which would seem wasteful and unfair to many.

Sadly, there is just no hint of any change in culture on the horizon. A fundamental problem is that so many of those in senior positions in racing also have interests in the bloodstock industry, or are influenced by others with such interests. We must simply await the day when horses are bred to race, rather than to breed more horses.

In the meantime, here’s my take on the spectrum of possible outcomes if Sea The Stars had lined up against Harbinger last weekend, as they might have been reported by an excitable young scribe. For the avoidance of doubt, all the quotes are invented. I tend to think the third scenario would be the most likely result, but I’m just guessing. Like all racing fans, I’ll die wondering.

1) Sea reaches new level

Sea The Stars is officially the greatest Flat racehorse of all time, having won yesterday’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot by a record 12 lengths in a time that took the previous course record to pieces. His jockey, the 51-year-old Mick Kinane, was left clinging on for dear life as the four-year-old bolted clear of Harbinger in the final furlong.

Kinane, who postponed his retirement when Chris Tsui made the very sporting decision to keep Sea The Stars in training, said: “Most of that was a blur, to be honest. Amazingly, he’s even better this year – the one thing he couldn’t do at three was pull away and win by a tidy margin.”

Bookmakers refused to offer odds about the colt’s chances for a second Arc victory, their spokesmen muttering darkly about not being a charity. “We’ve had to move our business offshore just to get back what he’s cost us,” said the chief executive of one firm.

2) Sea edges it in thriller

Memories of Grundy against Bustino were evoked here yesterday as Sea The Stars collared Harbinger close to home to win the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, one of the most thrilling races ever staged on Ascot’s famous turf. The runner-up briefly traded at 1-2 on the betting exchanges after Olivier Peslier sent him clear with over a furlong to run, but Sea The Stars produced a devastating burst of pace to draw level with just strides to spare and had inched ahead at the line.

“I should be heartbroken,” said Peslier, “but it’s a privilege to have been part of that.” Sea The Stars’ unbeaten run now stretches to 11 races and his nine consecutive Group Ones put him two clear of the previous mark set by Rock Of Gibraltar.

Incredibly, some snivelling types continue to snipe at the mighty champion, pointing out that none of those wins has come by more than two and a half lengths. “I suppose you would hardly regard Harbinger as one of the all-time greats,” conceded the winning trainer, John Oxx, “but you can only beat what’s put in front of you.”

3) Sea sunk by new star

Sea The Stars’ unbeaten run finally came to an end at a mournful Ascot yesterday. The crowd of 50,000, who had backed him as though defeat were out of the question, maintained a stunned silence as Harbinger returned to the winner’s enclosure, having beaten the Irish runner by a head after a thrilling duel.

Sent off the 1-7 favourite for what would have been his ninth consecutive Group One win, following victories in the Ganay and the Coronation Cup earlier this season, Sea The Stars never got to the front. The colt travelled as well as ever but was left flat-footed by his rival’s acceleration at the two-furlong pole and, though he rallied strongly, he never looked like going past.

“We made a sporting decision to keep him in training for another year,” said his owner, Chris Tsui. “I don’t regret it, though we’ve given up millions that he could have earned as a stallion this year. It was the right thing to do for the sake of the sport that has given us so much.

“It’s a shame to see him go out like this, but he’s danced every dance and no one could blame him if all those top-class races had taken the edge off him. I suppose a champion should be carried out on his shield.”

“My fella was just a yard or two off his game today,” said Mick Kinane, rider of the runner-up. “Take nothing away from the winner, but I’d say we’d have cuffed him if he’d turned up at Epsom last month.”

4) Harbinger pushes Sea aside

Sea The Stars’ reign as the world’s best racehorse appeared to be ended in decisive fashion yesterday at Ascot, where he was beaten four lengths by the previously unheralded Harbinger in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. It was the Irish horse’s first defeat since he was second on his racecourse debut more than two years ago.

The crowd had roared its approval as Mick Kinane pulled Sea The Stars to the outside at the turn for home, lining up the hot favourite for his familiar race-winning move, but jubilation quickly became shocked silence as Harbinger, who had been a length or two ahead of his rival for most of the race, shot clear. Sea The Stars rallied and eventually came home well ahead of the third, Cape Blanco, but seemed to be outclassed by the winner.

Experts were quick to assert that Sea The Stars had run below his best. “Who on earth is this Harbinger?” asked one. “He’s never run in a top-class race before and he got stuffed in a Group Three last autumn. This form is worth nothing. An in-form Sea The Stars would have booted him into the grandstand.”

Asked for an explanation, Mick Kinane, who rode the runner-up, said: “He just didn’t give me the same feel.”

5) Harbinger storms home as Sea lapped

The career of one of Flat racing’s greatest horses came to a sad end yesterday at Ascot, where Sea The Stars trailed home in fifth place in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, for which he had started as the long odds-on favourite. Though no injury was evident as the colt was unsaddled, connections were quick to confirm that he had run his last race.

“I can’t find anything wrong with him,” said his trainer, John Oxx, “but he’s run as though he’d put both feet down the same trouser-leg. Mick [Kinane] said he was never travelling with his normal fluency and, when he asked him to go and challenge the leaders, there was nothing there.”

Some speculated that Sea The Stars had lost his enthusiasm for the game after so many races at the highest level. They pointed to his scrambled Read the rest of this entry »