IT’S a strange weekend, celebrating the jumping champions here and in the UK, while one eye moves ahead to the first classics next weekend. The various trials saw the offspring of Frankel debut in their classic season. It was a trend noted from his first crop that he wasn’t stamping his stock and they came in all shapes and sizes.

From the Newmarket and Newbury trials last week, it seems that the range of distances over which his three-year-olds run is also going to be varied. Eminent looks as he will stay further than a mile, Cracksman is shaping into a Derby colt, while many think Queen Kindly will drop back in distance and Dream Castle showed a smart change of gear before Barney Roy overhauled him, for some to compare him with champion sprinter Muhaarar. Of course all those Group 1 winning mares that were Frankel’s first mates will exert a strong influence, and cancel out the speed from his dam Kind, but it’s all a bit unexpected to see distances moving toward the mile and a half when you remember how steadfastly Henry Cecil kept him at the mile until York of his four-year-old season.