Black Caviar: the best sprinter in the world pictured at Caulfield

  PICTURE: Getty Images  

What about a Frankel and Black Caviar match?

WORLD CLASS: an analysis of the international scene according to Racing Post Ratings

Black Caviar is the best sprinter in the world, while Frankel is the best miler. An interesting argument has arisen as to the distance at which they would be equal.

I think a 6f race would go to the mare and 7f to the colt. Between those trips I have no idea, although withSir Henry unlikely ever to drop his star below 7f the tipping point is moot.

There could, however, be a meeting between the superstar duo in the years ahead which may answer another question: what do you get if you cross a freak with a freak?

A super freak? If only it were that easy.

The product of a purely hypothetical (at this stage, but I'll be looking for my 10% if it does happen) covering between Frankel and Black Caviar would almost certainly make seven-figures in the sales ring, but would the youngster be any good?

If you want to enhance the breed then mating Frankel and Black Caviar would be taking the best-with-the-best theory to the extreme.

Bothhave been utterly dominant in their fields and have never looked like losing, but supreme track ability does not always flow through the gene pool.

Frankel: has a physical advantage

  PICTURE: Mark Cranham  

No one has cracked the code for breeding a superstar, let alone for enhancing the breed, and peak on-track ability is just one of many factors which contribute to the ability of a horse's offspring.

It would be natural to think that peak ability would be a good guide to progeny. In general terms it is, but I've had a look through the very best horses of recent years and, broadly speaking and in relation to their own ability, they weren't very successful at stud.

There is a distinction to be drawn between exceptional colts and fillies going to stud, since colts will be showered with hundreds of black-type mares from which to spawn a star, while mares have a maximum of 20 chances to pass on their talent. But neither group has done outstandingly well given what they achieved on the racecourse themselves.

First the colts. The top ten all-time RPR list features star colts like Dubai Millennium (139), Daylami (138), Generous (137), Peintre Celebre (137), Zilzal (137), Dayjur (136), Mark of Esteem (136) and Montjeu (136).

There are some notable success stories: Montjeu is undoubtedly a star bothof the track and in the breeding world, with 20 of his progeny rated 120 or higher and three rated above 130.

Peintre Celebre has also done well. He currently has nine progeny with a peak RPR above 120. Dubai Millennium had just one crop to race and did manage to throw Dubawi (128).

But beyond those three the track stars of the past have not produced quite so many top level performers as you might expect.

Zilzal has two 120ers, Faithful Son (125) and Among Men (123) and Mark Of Esteem has three sons who rated 121, including Sir Percy.

Daylami managed to get one son with an RPR above the 120-threshold (Grey Swallow, 126), while Generous has one rated 120 and Dayjur hasn't got any above 117.

The hope with Frankel is that because he has a distinct physical advantage (long stride) which sets him well ahead of his contemporaries, if he manages to pass that on it may allow him to fare better than his predecessors in the breeding sheds.

With the leading fillies, who have obviously had less opportunities, success were also limited - again, relatively speaking.

The leading distaffers in RPR history include: Safely Kept (132),Bosra Sham (130), Balanchine (129), Indian Skimmer (129), In The Groove (128), Miss Alleged (128), Lonchsong (127), Salsabil (127) and Sunline (127).

Salsabil, who hails from the Flame Of Tara dynasty, has fared best of these, producing three horses rated between 109 and 112.

A further five of the mares (Safely Kept, Bosra Sham, Balanchine, Miss Alleged and Lochsong) produced a horse with a peak RPR of between 106 and 108.

Indian Skimmer has hadjust one winner - Witchry, who is still running in handicaps for Tony Newcombe. In The Groove and Sunline have also produced winners but no black-type performers.

In all these nine mares have so far produced three Group 3 winners and three Listed winners, which is no mean feat, but again the very best have not done as well as you might expect at reproducing their own supreme ability through their offspring.

Top mares are often raced by large owner-breeders, so manyof the offspring from these mares were retained, but the first foals of Bosra Sham, Sunline and Miss Alleged all went through the ring and, as you might expect, all topped the sales.

Black Caviar rates higher than all of these mares as the best in RPR history and she does look a freakishly talented individual, so perhaps she too can defy convention and produce a Group 1 performer.

Sea The Stars: out of Urban Sea

  PICTURE: Patrick McCann

There have, of course, been Group 1 mares who have managed to reproduced their talent in the barn, including Arc winner Urban Sea (124), who threw Sea The Stars and Galileo, and Snow Bride who threw Lammtarra, but track ability does not always translate with these top-enders.

It is a delicate and unpredictable business creating equine greatness. Often, it is just about the mating. Get it right and you can produce a horse better than both parents.

More often still there is luck/nature/god involvement; that which is highlighted by full-siblings being entirely different beasts, that which makes him Galileo and not Black Sam Bellamy.

Perhaps the very best racehorses do not do so well at stud because once the fine balance of equine greatness has been achieved, then mating that great with anything will upset the delicate balance.

Sending any mare to a theoretically perfect stallion can only really produce a foal worse than the sire, whereas if you're starting point is an imperfect horse there is always something to work on in the mating.

How can a mating with Frankel improve on the stride-length the horse himself possesses? He is at the fringe of what is possible in a thoroughbred.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the champs of the past. There will always be a reversion-to-mean factor from these top-end matings and from the highest point there comes the biggest drop back to the mean.

In fairness, those nine elite mares probably have a better record at producing black-type winners than a group of nine randomly selected 100-rated mares, who would probably in turn outproduce a group of 80ers.

What is clear from this small select group, however, is that track ability is no guarantee of stud success for colts or fillies.

No one can know how well Frankel and Black Caviar will fare at stud until their offspring hit the track.

But whether they happen to or not, Frankel and Black Caviar do not need to directly produce the next step on the path to enhancing the breed, because they already represent the pinnacle of what thoroughbred breeders have achieved to this point.

Black Caviar again dazzled on the weekend, posting an RPR of 129+ for an easy success over a weak field, while potential love match Frankel gets the chance to strut his stuff on the inaugural Champions' Day at Ascot on Saturday.

It's a great time for great horses.

In retrospective news the Eclipse ratings have been trimmed so that So You Think and Workforce's peak ratings for the season are 129 and 128. This brings the former Aussie in line with his best southern hemisphere form and reflects the Derby-Arc winner's worse than expected season.

They have both had opportunity to confirm their 130+ marks this autumn. Workforce simply doesn't look up to it, while So You Think might be, but in view of Workforce's season, the Eclipse form was not enough.

Workforce's demise at four may be another argument for the weight for age being wrong, although some get better and some worse (relative to wfa) from three to four and in this case the issue is clouded due to the lacklustre performance of the Sir Michael Stoute yard in 2011.   So You Think is, along with Frankel and Black Caviar, set to race on in 2012.

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