2-year-olds: who are the most effective trainers, and the top sires?

Juvenile racing is an important department of the global sport, and the TRC Global Rankings algorithm applied to 2-year-old races in isolation reveals some interesting angles.

To recap, the algorithm was designed to cope with different sample sizes in each category, so that we can compare, say, Bob Baffert’s results with 24 different juveniles to Todd Pletcher’s with twice that number. As sample size grows, a kind of statistical gravity, known as regression towards the mean, drags down stellar results to Earth.

Of course, Aidan O’Brien is a supernova. It doesn’t matter whether he is training youngsters or veterans, we are very confident he deserves to be regarded as the #1 trainer on the planet.

Table 1: Leading European-based trainers with juveniles

(since 13/11/2013 by TRC algorithm)

_{The first column on the left combines Europe and the U.S. The second column is the overall world ranking.}

Like his father before him, Wiltshire trainer Richard Hannon has a strong record with juveniles and ranks #2 in Europe currently by our figures. His 22 group winners in the current rankings window is 13 more than anyone else (other than O’Brien, who has 44).

Apart from O’Brien, three other trainers highly ranked in our main rankings also figure prominently here too: the Godolphin trainers Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor, along with French legend Andre Fabre.

Noteworthy is the presence of Yorkshire rivals Mark Johnston and Richard Fahey, who are the two top trainers in Britain across all ages of horse by number of winners in 2016. Neither man can be described as a 2-year-old specialist, however, and this is the theme of Table 1: most of the top names in the main rankings also figure.

Table 2 uses the same strictures to summarise juvenile results for U.S. trainers. Here we can see a similar concentration of names who do well across the entire spectrum of age-groups. Wesley Ward is the only trainer particularly renowned for a juvenile specialty.

Table 2: Leading North American trainers with juveniles

(since 13/11/2013 by TRC algorithm)

_{The first column on the left combines Europe and the U.S. The second column is the overall world ranking.}

It is notable that Mark Casse has a sizeable lead at the top of the U.S. rankings with 973 points. This only goes to show how dominant O’Brien is in Europe, for he has 65 points more than this. Casse is building an impressive portfolio of horses and is likely to climb even higher than #17 in the overall rankings (and #4 in the U.S.) by the end of 2017.

We have included the top 20 sires of juveniles over the last three years in Table 3, including sires whose modal country (where they have the most number of runners) is either U.S.A. or in Europe. Because data for juveniles allows younger sires to make faster progress than in the main rankings, a significant name makes his first appearance in a TRC top 10 – perhaps the best horse to race in Europe, Frankel.

Table 3: Top 20 sires of juveniles over the last three years

(since 13/11/2013 by TRC algorithm)

Frankel is already #9 in our rankings isolating juvenile racing and has moved up steadily in the main classification to his current #141. He is easily the best first-season sire here, using the combination of IV (Impact Value, which is basically win-rate) and tRPR (time-decaying Racing Post Rating, which is a proxy for strength-of-schedule).

Frankel’s sire Galileo again rules supreme, but perhaps the most interesting feature of this table is the absence of Dubawi, who ranks only #37, mainly because his progeny has won just four group races in the last three years, compared with the Coolmore great’s 27. This is well known in the bloodstock community, but nonetheless anomalous in the light of the Godolphin stalwart producing plenty of stock effective at a mile when fully mature.

Perhaps this contrast reminds us of the potency of Galileo, though having O’Brien train most of his progeny is undoubtedly an advantage.

Table 3 also features Pioneerof The Nile, who was featured last week in the rankings review of the Breeders’ Cup. His own stallion career is highly promising, but that of his son, American Pharoah, will be even more closely followed when his first progeny reach the track in 2019.