Royal Ascot: Baaeed simply a man among boys in Queen Anne Stakes
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It was after nine starts, all wins, five at the Group 1 level, that the great Frankel began his 2012 season with smashing score in the J.T. Lockinge Stakes, a straight mile at Newbury. From there, Frankel went on to the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, which he captured by a remarkable 11 lengths over the very good horse Excelebration.
No one’s yet saying Baaeed could be the next Frankel . . . though, come to think of it, some people kind of are.
With seven wins from seven starts and a walk-in-the-park stroll in the Lockinge that yielded a 3 1/4-length win, Baaeed enters the Queen Anne, first race of the Royal Ascot meeting, the most exciting European miler since, well, Frankel.
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How widely anticipated is win No. 8? Baaeed on Friday was priced at about 2-7 with English bookmakers even before final declarations for the Queen Anne. Frankly, that does not seem like an underlay.
Real World, manhandled into second in the Lockinge, is the general Queen Anne second choice, and he simply is not beating Baaeed if the favorite so much as approaches his baseline performance level.
Baaeed, trained by William Haggas for Shadwell Estate Ltd. and the regular mount of Jim Crowley, emerged from relative obscurity last season to win the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp and the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, run over the same straight-mile Ascot course as the Queen Anne.
That résumé falls far short of Frankel’s to this stage, though Baaeed has displayed some of the same dominant traits. Frankel already was a star at age 2, where Baaeed didn’t even debut until he was 3, and during the period Baaeed began making a name for himself during his 3-year-old summer, Frankel was smashing any Group 1 rival who dared oppose him. Frankel, the most brilliant of talents, had fire fueling his spirit before learning the true craft of racing; Baaeed is a much cooler customer who already has demonstrated success under a variety of tactics. Whichever Crowley employs Tuesday is very likely to work well.
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Nearly as short a price in Tuesday’s Group 1 St. James’s Palace Stakes, a one-turn mile for 3-year-olds, is Coroebus, who runs for Godolphin, trainer Charlie Appleby, and jockey William Buick. The same connections have the high-level 3-year-old Native Trail, Europe’s leading 2-year-old of 2021, who was favored in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket last month but beaten three-quarters of a length by Coroebus. Well back in third was Luxembourg, Aidan O’Brien’s top 3-year-old, and when Native Trail returned to win the Irish 2000 Guineas, Coroebus’s star shone even brighter. Appleby reported Coroebus’s training to be “more than pleasing as of late,” and Coroebus, not as advanced a juvenile as Native Trail, should continue improving through the summer.