to baaeed or not to baaeed?

​Should Baaeed finish his career in the Champion Stakes at Ascot? Or should he be allowed to strut his stuff in the Irish Champion Stakes, followed by a career-defining last race in the Arc? These are the questions being banded about in the Racing Post and I dare say out in the wider racing world.
Personally, I think these are entirely the wrong questions to be asking of Shadwell. My question would be this: why not keep him in training as a five-year-old?
Unlike the two horses who dominate my thinking as to which was the greatest flat horse of my lifetime, Brigadier Gerard and Frankel who both ran for three seasons, Baaeed has only raced for two. And in the course of those two seasons for the majority of his races he has had hardly to exert himself to confirm his status as the best around.
Again, personally, I do not believe he has achieved enough to be considered alongside Brigadier Gerard and Frankel. The Brigadier won fifteen races in a row before his baffling defeat to Roberto in what is now the Juddmonte International at York. Also, not only did Brigadier Gerard win over 12-furlongs, he also beat the best horse any of those considered by experts to be ‘great horses’ in the interim period. In beating Mill Reef by an extending 3-lengths, winning over distances from 5-furlongs to 12-furlongs and setting many course records, makes for a pretty solid argument for him being the greatest flat horse of my lifetime.
Yet, I have to admit, Baaeed could surpass the Brigadier’s achievements, though only if he is given the opportunity by his connections. By selecting the Champion Stakes at Ascot for his swan-song, Shadwell and William Haggas will be playing safe, protecting his commercial value as a stallion before the riskier alternative of allowing breeders to discover the full range of his abilities as a racehorse.
For all their unpopularity during their lifetime, with their reputations unrecoverable, it seems, since their passing, it is to their credit that John and Jean Hislop campaigned Brigadier Gerard with the sporting bravado that involved exposing him to possible defeat multiple of times. His breeding – he was by an unfashionable sire who was basically a miler – suggested he had little hope of staying 12-furlongs, yet the Hislops were determined, even after a hectic schedule as a 4-year-old, to run him in the King George & Queen Elisabeth and were equally determined to take on Mill Reef again.
As with Frankel, there is little doubt in my mind that Baaeed is a ten/12- furlong horse. When Frankel won at York, he won going away with his head in his chest. It was the biggest wow moment, on the flat, of my lifetime. It left an indelible impression on me and for a day or two I thought I would have to revise my opinion on Brigadier Gerard being my personal ‘greatest horse’. Baaeed was impressive at York, I concede, but I have my doubts whether the form truly adds-up to much.
To attract the top breeders and best mares, I doubt if Baaeed needs to achieve anything more as his reputation now goes before him. But for an ailing sport, wouldn’t it be the most marvellous gift if Shadwell rolled the dice and kept him in training for another season. Just one more season. They can have the pleasure and financial reward of Baaeed as a stallion for twenty-years or more, with reasonable luck, of course. One more year in training, though, would bring incalculable reward for the sport.
Keep Baaeed in training and the Eclipse, King George & Queen Elisabeth and Arc await to be added to his already impressive C.V. and with the added bonus that if the season rolls out as I predict he can be marketed as the universally acclaimed ‘greatest horse’.
I have always said that owners fortunate and blessed to own great horses have as much a responsibility to the sport that feeds them as to the horses they race. Shadwell have bred horses now for 40-years or more, if I am correct, yet Baaeed is the best of magnificent cohort of thoroughbreds. They will not breed a better one, that’s for sure. Despite their pompous claim that Brigadier Gerard was the result of great breeding knowledge, the Hislops got plain lucky. Juddmonte, as with Shadwell, have bred top-class horses for decades, yet they will never breed any horse better than Frankel. For all their longevity of success, Coolmore are yet to breed a horse that can be placed alongside the horses already mentioned. The same can be said for Godolphin.
Will Baaeed be kept in training for another year? Of course not. Commercial interests will take sway even though Baaeed is blessed with a kind temperament and is as easy a ride as a kids pony. But there we go. We can’t have everything can we?