Tales from the Water Cooler: An expensive night mare for Frankel

Thoroughbred Frankel has proved quite the stud

Sir Henry Cecil with Frankel at Newmarket racecourse on September 29, 2012 (GETTY IMAGES)

Not wishing to be at all indelicate, but circumstances demand that I ask you something a little on the icky side. It is: how much would you say you are worth – as a lover, that is? What sort of price tag would you put on your hanky-panky? While most of us will thankfully never have to come up with an hourly rate, it’s a subject which cropped up this week in the world of horse racing.

It’s been a year since the undefeated champion thoroughbred Frankel kicked off his iron shoes and retired to a life, as they put it, “at stud”. That means that all he does now is have sex. If you have a mare and £125,000, Frankel will be only too happy to make a foal of himself (in equine circles, this is known as “doing the Diggler”) with the élan of a young Russell Brand.

Amazingly, of the 133 mares which have trotted along to Frankel’s hay-strewn boudoir in the past year, 126 are now expecting.

That’s quite a performance for an animal with limited access to after-shave or R’n’B Slow-Jamz CDs.

However, before all of our male readers shrink away in emasculated shame, the final word on the subject should go to Lord Edmund Blackadder, who was once forced to chastise his manservant as regards the dimensions of the contents of gentlemen’s tights.

“Size is no guarantee of quality, Baldrick,” he said. “Most horses are very well endowed, but that does not necessarily make them sensitive lovers.”

If only this were true…