According to Timeform, Brigadier Gerard, with an annual rating of 144, is the joint-third highest rated horse in the history of that organisation, alongside Tudor Minstrel and behind only Frankel and Sea-Bird. However, ‘Smokin” Joe Mercer, who rode Brigadier Gerard throughout his 18-race career, including 17 wins, argued that while Frankel might be as good as the ‘Big Fella’ he was not the greatest ever, as classified by Timeform and World Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings.

Mercer highlighted the quality of the horses that had finished behind Brigadier Gerard at various points during his career. He said, ‘…they were horses like Mill Reef, who went on to be a champion; Faraway Sun, who was a good French horse he beat five lengths in the Sussex Stakes [in 1971], wasn’t beaten again that season.’

Bred and owned by Mr. and Mrs. John Hislop and trained by Major William Richard ‘Dick’ Hern’ in West Isley, Berkshire, Brigadier Gerard was unbeaten at two and three years. His most famous victory came in the 2,000 Guineas in 1971 when, despite starting only third choice in the betting, he lowered the colours of the aforementioned Mill Reef, striding away in the closing stages to win by three lengths. Mill Reef, of course, went on win the Derby, Eclipse Stakes, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, while Brigadier Gerard won the St.James’s Palace Stakes, Sussex Stakes, Celebration Mile, Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Champion Stakes.

In 1972, Brigadier Gerard extended his winning sequence to fifteen, with victories including the Lockinge Stakes, Prince of Wales’s Stakes, Eclipse Stakes and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Consequently, in the absence of Mill Reef, he was sent off 1/3 favourite for the inaugural running of the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup, now the Juddmonte International Stakes, at York, in which he faced just four rivals. However, despite his prohibitive odds, he could never quite get to grips with the Derby winner, Roberto, who won by three lengths in a course record time.

Brigadier Gerard’s famous 2000 Guineas victory in 1971

Anyone with even the most passing interest in horse racing has probably heard of Frankel. Bred and owned by Khalid Abdullah, Frankel carried his famous green, pink and white silks to victory in all 14 races between August, 2010 and October, 2012, including ten at the highest Group One level. He started favourite on all 14 starts and odds-on favourite on all bar his narrow, but comfortable, winning debut on the Newmarket July Course.

Named after the late Robert ‘Bobby Frankel, five-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer, Frankel established his superstar status in the 2,000 Guineas in 2011. Sent off at odds of 1/2 or, in other words, the shortest-priced favourite since Apalachee was turned over at 4/9 in 1974, Frankel made all the running at a ferocious gallop and passed the post six lengths ahead of his nearest rival. By October, 2011, the son of Galileo was already the fourth highest-rated Flat horse in the history of Timeform, with a rating of 143 and the following June, after an 11-length demolition of old rival Excelebration in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, became the highest-rated Flat horse since Timeform ratings were first published in 1948, with a rating of 147.

The emergence of Frankel provided an appropriate swansong for hist trainer, the late Sir Henry Cecil, who died of stomach cancer in June, 2013, at the age of 70. One of the most successful and popular racehorse trainers since World War II, Cecil thrived during the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties – he was, in fact Champion Trainer ten times between 1976 and 1993 – but spent most of the Noughties in the doldrums. In February, 2007, he revealed that he had been receiving treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma for the previous nine months.

All 14 career wins from the legend that is Frankel