Pharoah's world title: what the ratings say about the rest of the Americans

The U.S. Triple Crown winner’s coronation in London as undisputed World No.1 during the unveiling of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings for 2015 was surely a moment to rejoice for believers in the enduring stature of the Great American Thoroughbred.

It’s been seven long years since a U.S. runner has earned sufficient respect from the international assessors to capture the world title, and in that case (Curlin in 2008) the crown had to be shared (with Irish colt New Approach). And the figure those two achieved in their highest-rated performances during that season was just 130, a mark that was made to look rather pedestrian alongside those that were to come in more recent seasons.

Indeed, America’s best performers since Curlin have barely registered more than a couple of honourable mentions in these annual end-of-season judgements. The likes of Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Blame, Quality Road, Animal Kingdom, I’ll Have Another, Bayern and California Chrome may have lit up the racetracks of North America, but they didn’t make much of an impression on the people with the slide rules from the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities.

There were better horses elsewhere in the world, their calculations told them. Quite a few of them.

The only American who got close was Wise Dan, who was twice given a season’s best figure of 129. The first time that happened (in 2012), it wasn’t in the same zip code as the champion (but then Frankel did register a highest-since-the-ratings began figure of 140 for his remarkable victory in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot that June). The following year, however, it put Wise Dan just one pound behind the joint champions Treve (the French filly who won her first Arc that year) and Australian mare Black Caviar (the highest-rated sprinter of these times, and also the highest-rated female, having achieved 132 in 2011.)

So you’ll see from these stats that American Pharoah has been a long time coming: 

Longines World’s Best Rankings 2008

2009

2010

2011

 2012

2013

 2014

2015

Of course, the IFHA experts had no choice but to embrace American Pharoah. Here was a magnificent season, a set of towering performances that left no hiding place for any prejudice against dirt form, if indeed there has ever been any. This was a great horse. Everybody everywhere got that.

The big question, however, is: how good is the rest of the U.S. class of 2015? Did they hold their own against the cream of Europe and the growing strength of the Far East and Australia, or does the emergence of American Pharoah temporarily mask a continuing decline?

The answers to those three questions are probably ‘okay’ and ‘more or less’ and ‘hopefully not’.

The chart below lists all horses given a rating of 121 or better in the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings for 2015. As it shows, the U.S. has fewer of these highest quality performers than Europe or the Rest of the World, yet these numbers are roughly consistent with top-level horse populations, and it should be noted that the U.S. is the strongest performing individual jurisdiction in the list.

Americans will probably shrug off these stats as irrelevant, comforted instead by the Eclipse Awards, the results of which may be less scientifically arrived at but which celebrate a different level of enthusiasm and emotion.

Interestingly, the Longines rankings largely reinforced the decisions of the Eclipse Awards voters. There were three cases, however, where the Eclipse verdicts were well out of step. The first two are entirely understandable:

ECLIPSEAWARDS: MALETURF (Eclipsewinnerincapitals)

3-YEAR-OLDFILLY (Eclipse winner in capitals)

The third, however, is a little more surprising. In London on Tuesday, the late and much-missed Shared Belief was hailed as the joint third best horse in the world in 2015. Admittedly he was out of action from April, but the fact that he failed to attract a single vote in the Older Dirt Male category must surely raise more than a few eyebrows.

OLDERDIRTMALE (Eclipse winner in capitals)

Footnote 1: Obviously American Pharoah represents a high that will never be equalled for Zayat Stables. However it is not the only time their horses have figured in the Longines rankings, as the table below shows:

OTHER ZAYAT HORSES IN THE LONGINES RANKINGS