the k.g. & Q.E. PLUS RATINGS.

​It is John Gosden versus Aidan O’Brien on Saturday in Ascot’s King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Just the two of them. No other trainer in Europe or Great Britain has seen fit to have a stab at this country’s most prestigious flat race for older horses. And it is older horses this year as there will be no representation of this season’s classic generation. It will still be a fascinating contest; how could it be otherwise with Frankie Dettori pitting his wits and race craft against the manoeuvres and team tactics of the Coolmore battalions. All six of them, apparently.
One of the O’Brien squad is sure to go off at a good lick, possibly Sovereign, tactics that proved right up his street in last season’s Irish Derby. Of course, Frankie will be wise to such a strategy, though whether he’ll be able to counteract it will be another matter. Magical and Japan maybe the main contenders for Coolmore but as with Serpentine at Epsom they’ll not mind if the pace-setter goes on to win. With Coolmore these days, any result is good as long as Coolmore win.
Incidentally, isn’t it fascinating to see an Epsom Derby winner having his next race in the Goodwood Cup, with the added sparkle of taking on Stradivarius. Again, Gosden v O’Brien.
Whatever spin you put on it, Ascot’s summer showpiece remains light years away in appeal and aspiration with owners and trainers in comparison to the Arc. At its inception it was undoubtedly a race of renown, one every jockey, trainer and owner wanted on their c.v. But no more, it seems. It’s not anyone’s fault. There are just too many similar races these days both at home, in Europe and around the world. Also, breeders now have a fascination with shorter distances, mirroring more and more the situation in the U.S. and elsewhere. I believe you could bump-up the prize money for the King George to in excess of the Arc and still, because of where it sits in the calendar, it will be bested by other races in England and abroad. It’s all about the stallion fee and less about the sport, sadly.
If Saturday follows the pattern of 2020, we could be in for another surprising result. I am an admirer of Japan but if I were to tip against Enable, which goes against the grain, doesn’t it, I would put forward Fanny Logan at a fancy price. 

Julian Muscat had a good old moan about ratings this morning in the Racing Post. Good for him. I had a good old moan about ratings after the ridiculous number received by Pinatubo at the end of last season. I said at the time that no horse should be given a public rating until it had run three times, with his rating being the average of the ratings achieved in those three outings, when the form of the other runners can also be assessed, and then be accessed publicly again after another two starts. This system should apply to all horses, not just the Group-type horses, thus allowing a trainer to choose to rest on a horse’ laurels rather than run it quickly before it is reassessed. 
Last week, in the letters page of the Racing Post, a reader gave his opinion that Sea The Stars was the horse of the century, better even, apparently than Frankel, who, in my opinion, would have blown him away over every distance from a mile to a mile-and-a-half, the latter I believe would have proved Frankel’s optimum trip.
I have little regard for ratings and care little what rating Sea The Stars finished his career on. He was without a shadow of a doubt the horse of his generation. The problem I have with Sea The Stars, as fine a racehorse and how great a stallion he has become, is that his generation was in the singular and that he was in effect a shooting star, not a jewel in the crown that can be attributed to Frankel and before him Brigadier Gerard.
Sea The Stars was a three-year-old. He achieved nothing as a two-year-old and was not kept in training as a four-year-old so we have no idea of his soundness and durability or if he were capable of giving weight to the best of the generation that followed him. Frankel and Brigadier Gerard were both highly rated two-year-olds, won the races expected of them as three-year-olds and stayed in training at four. Great horses beat other great horses even when disadvantaged by weight, ground or distance. Brigadier Gerard, for example, beat Mill Reef, the only truly great horse any one of the three defeated.
Returning to Pinatubo: if given the opportunity, which might be doubtful, he could yet live up to his ridiculous two-year-old rating but not if he is campaigned at the in-between distance of seven-furlongs. They need to be brave and pitch him in against Siskin and Kameko in the Sussex Stakes. What have they got to lose? He’ll always have his two-year-old rating to fall back on when it comes to selling his potential as a stallion to breeders.
It amazes me that no one looks to Mark Johnston, the winning-most trainer in the history of our sport, for inspiration. Or even Aidan O’Brien. Defeat is not the end of the world to them if something is learned that will lead to a better result next time. Racehorses are bred to race; it is what is so admirable about Coolmore and Mark Johnston. Pinatubo is a racehorse, if they ran him regularly, he might actually learn to settle in his races and, who knows, he might win the races as a four-year-old that will earn him a similar rating to the ridiculous rating he currently must live up to. Ratings are opinion, nothing more; and too unreliable to be regarded as scientific.