GOODWOOD, UK — After the 2,000 Guineas they were only whispering the name Frankel, but now, after a dazzling display on the Downs, Bow Echo is being loudly compared to the Juddmonte great and it is easy to understand why, even if he has some way to go yet.On a boiling hot day you had to peer through the Panamas for a clear view of the track, the stands stuffed with the Goodwood faithful eager to soak up the race of the week – the race of the season. The Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Gstaad has challenged Bow Echo thrice now, and thrice he's been denied, though he lost nothing in defeat here. In any other season we'd be hailing him a stand-out talent, so closely matched have he and his nemesis been in their last two meetings. But somehow, even when it looks as hopeless as it did momentarily at the top of the Goodwood straight, Bow Echo and his impressive young partner Billy Loughnane, manage to prevail.It is of course too early to be using the F-word around Bow Echo but there are obvious similarities to be drawn, not least from his unbeaten record under the tutelage of George Boughey – extended on Wednesday to six – and a three-year-old season which has taken in victories in the 2,000 Guineas, St James's Palace Stakes and the Sussex Stakes.Liam O'Rourke, racing and bloodstock manager to Bow Echo's late owner-breeder Sheikh Mohammed Obaid is not a man given to hoopla or hyperbole, but he is readily brought close to tears with each new Group 1 victory by the colt. Of the comparison to Frankel, he said, “Somebody said the same thing to me earlier in the week and I didn't quite necessarily agree with it but I then sort of had to pinch myself. Well, they're going to ask these questions now, and I think he's a bit to go. He may not be as phenomenally impressive as Frankel was, he doesn't dominate, but he has such heart, he's so tenacious, and he has a huge amount of ability. We've yet to see his true finishing speed. I feel that's a huge weapon he holds up his sleeve.”It's quite a thought, and indeed Bow Echo threw shades of Harry Houdini to extricate himself from the tightly-packed pocket in which he was kept by Puerto Rico and Christophe Soumillon, studiously marking him as the field approached the turn for home. Things became no easier as he ducked inside Gstaad, after initially tracking him, and found himself well and truly trapped. “He was sensational today, again, things didn't work out for him, but he settled beautifully and surely the sign of any classy racehorse is one that can get himself out of such trouble in a Group 1, and taking on older horses for the first time as well, and to finish with such a flourish,” O'Rourke continued. “That run in the race, through adversity, there's a huge amount of admiration for this horse, and I probably am the one that didn't give him as much credit as I should have all along. But he is a champion, unbeaten.“I thought he couldn't win from there and I watched him with a couple of seasoned veterans of tactics and they said the same thing, that it would take a wonder horse to win it, to get out of those pockets and still finish with a flourish, but he got out of two pockets and finished with a flourish.”O'Rourke noted that the Prix Jacques Le Marois and the Breeders' Cup have both been considered as possible future targets but added, “As always, we'll let the dust settle, see how he comes out of the race and take it from there.”He said, “It's a wonderful team with George, Billy, they are the new champions really. It's a young team – Henry Morshead and all the boys in there – they've all played a great part and they've done a super job. They've got him here unbeaten. That was truly a champion performance from him, though I am very biased of course.” The post ‘Sensational’: Liam O’Rourke on Bow Echo’s Champion Performance appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.