Further honours were heaped on champion racehorse Frankel last night as he became the first horse to be crowned Horse of the Year for the second successive time at the glamorous Cartier Racing Awards at The Dorchester hotel in London.
As he won the Cartier award for the best two-year-old colt in 2010, this is the third year that Frankel’s owner-breeder, Khalid Abdulla, has been presented with one of these prestigious prizes.
In addition, the Cartier/Daily Telegraph Award of Merit went to Team Frankel, which was collected by all the people who have been regularly associated with the unbeaten son of Galileo.
Sadly his trainer Sir Henry Cecil was too unwell to attend, but his wife Jane was among those gathered on the stage, who also included jockey Tom Queally, work rider Shane Featherstonhaugh, groom Sandeep Gauravaram, farrier Stephen Kielt and Dee Deacon, head lass at Cecil’s Newmarket yard.
Dee said: “It has been a whole, huge team effort. It starts from the genius of the guv’nor — the way he has handled and treated Frankel is just fantastic. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with Frankel. We have had plenty of very good horses, but he has been so very special.”
Unsurprisingly, Frankel was also named Cartier champion older horse of 2012.
The Cartier Sprinter Award went to the outstanding Australian racemare Black Caviar, who visited Britain to take the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot in June.
Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin racing operation went home with three awards. The unbeaten Certify, trained by Mahmood al Zarooni, was best two-year-old filly. Dawn Approach, bred and trained by Jim Bolger, took the colts’ equivalent. And Colour Vision, trained by Saeed bin Suroor to Ascot Gold Cup victory, won the Cartier Stayers’ Award.
Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber picked up the Cartier three-year-old Filly Award for their homebred The Fugue, who won the NassauStakes at Goodwood for new champion trainer John Gosden.
And Camelot, who took this year’s 2000 Guineas and Derby and just failed to make history by winning the St Leger and therefore the Triple Crown, was named best three-year-old colt.
The award was collected by JP Magnier, son of Coolmore supremo John Magnier, who said that Camelot was recovering well from colic surgery and would be back in training in 2013.
