Steeler is the most accomplished horse in the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy Stakes on Saturday at Doncaster in England, but it is the once-started maiden winner Kingsbarns who moved the betting markets all week.

Led by the outstanding 3-year-old Pierro and the improving older horse Green Moon, Saturday’s $3 million Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Racecourse in Australia has drawn an outstanding field of 14 in the country’s weight-for-age championship.

Run over about 1 1/4 miles on turf, the Group 1 Cox Plate could produce runners for the two-mile Melbourne Cup on Nov. 6. Of the 14 entrants in the Cox Plate, 10 have won Group 1 races.

As far as Frankel knows, nothing is yet fundamentally altered in his life. Sunday, the day after his career-ending victory in the Champion Stakes, win No. 14 without a defeat, Frankel was back in his stall at trainer Henry Cecil’s Warren Place stables in Newmarket, and there he will stay for the next several days.

Even when he wins in exceptional fashion, as he did in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Saturday at Ascot, Excelebration can’t escape Frankel’s shadow.

A half-hour after Excelebration effortlessly handled the good miler Cityscape, tallying a three-length score, Frankel ended his perfect career with a rousing win in the Champion Stakes. Five of Excelebration’s six losses over three racing seasons have come in races won by Frankel, and on four of those occasions, Excelebration finished second to him.

Frankel completed a brilliant undefeated career winning for the 14th time in the Champion Stakes on Saturday at Ascot in England, staking his claim as one of the best racehorses ever with a 1 3/4-length victory over the top-class French invader Cirrus des Aigles.

In Europe, Dunaden is just another solid upper-tier racehorse, but take him to Australia and Dunaden shines. The 2011 Melbourne Cup winner returned from a summer in the Northern Hemisphere and impressively captured the Group 1 Caulfield Cup on Saturday in Australia, rallying from 16^th to beat Alcopop by a half-length.

More rain fell at already sodden Ascot Racecourse on Friday afternoon, prompting the first statements of concern from the connections of Frankel, the undefeated superstar who is entered to race Saturday in the Champion Stakes.

Frankel starts in the Champion Stakes on Saturday at England, but the imprint of his career presses hard into the second-best race on Ascot’s card, the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Anyone with even half an ear to the international racing scene might be experiencing cognitive dissonance late this week.

On the one hand, racing luminaries have lined up to sing the praises of the mighty Frankel, who will try to win his 14th race without a loss in the Group 1 Champion Stakes on Saturday at Ascot. Everyone is calling him the best in the world. Trainer Andre Fabre called Frankel the best he’s ever seen. Star jockey William Buick rides Nathaniel, the third choice in the Champion, and even he was quoted as saying Frankel “looks unbeatable.”

For months the plan has been to send the great Frankel to the breeding shed after his swan song in the Champion Stakes on Saturday at Ascot. Mother Nature, however, has no intention of seeing Frankel ride off into the sunset.