KINGMAN, one of the very best milers of recent years and perhaps second only to the incomparable Frankel, has been retired this week.

His final outing was to have been in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day but a lingering throat infection made that engagement doubtful and owner Khalid Abdulla has made the prompt decision to call it a day.

Arguments will continue as to whether the colt should have remained unbeaten. The 2000 Guineas was an unsatisfactory spectacle with the field splitting into two groups and he failed to match Night Of Thunder close home.

However, that defeat was avenged in the St James’s Palace Stakes, while his other Group 1 triumphs came in the Irish 2000 Guineas, the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, where he produced a truly extraordinary burst of speed to master Toronado in the final furlong, and the Prix Jacques le Marois.

“He was by a long way the most exciting colt I have ever trained,” John Gosden said. “A horse with quite the most extraordinary acceleration and a horse who captured the imagination.”

Kingman will go to Khalid Abdulla’s Banstead Manor Stud, where he will stand alongside the great Juddmonte champion Frankel. For the same owner to have had two colts of this calibre so close together is nothing short of amazing.