Two of the world’s great horseraces took place last weekend - the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp and the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.
In the TRC Global Horse Rankings, victory in the Arc brought a massive 141-point rise in the Performance Index of the French 4-year-old Sottsass, who was ranked 38th last week but is now world #5. That lofty classification will never be put to the test, however, as the colt has already been retired to stand at Coolmore in Ireland.
Massive that rise may have been, but it was still eclipsed by the surge of Preakness winner Swiss Skydiver, whose gain was one better at 142 points. She is now world #11, up from 53. That makes her not only the leading filly or mare in North America, but also the second highest 3-year-old filly in the world, behind the Aidan O’Brien-trained dual Classic winner Love.
Fittingly for only the sixth filly ever to win the Preakness, Swiss Skydiver is the fifth-highest-ranked filly or mare of any age in the world.
The world’s top ten fillies and mares
Swiss Skydiver is also the fourth highest-ranked 3-year-old of either gender on the planet. She is still behind Belmont and Travers winner Tiz The Law, but has overtaken Kentucky Derby hero Authentic after beating him a neck in Baltimore.
The world’s top ten 3-year-olds
She was still not the highest climber in the world after last week’s action, though. That distinction goes to the Arc runner-up, the 3-year-old In Swoop, whose 196-point rise catapulted him from #384 to #55. The German Derby winner, who had previously been runner-up to Mogul (#66, an Arc absentee) in the Grand Prix de Paris, is an inexperienced colt who looks to be improving all the time.
He was the star of a magnificent Arc weekend for Francis-Henri Graffard, considered by many to be the natural successor to the likes of Andre Fabre and Sottsass’s trainer Jean-Claude Rouget at the top of the French training ranks. Graffard also sent out the Prix de l’Abbaye scorer Wooded and the Prix Daniel Wildenstein winner The Revenant and is now up to world #35.
He was one of a number of trainers to make big gains. Others included Brad Cox, who moved into the trainers’ top five, overtaking Bob Baffert to become the #2 trainer in the U.S. with four Graded wins, including the G1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity with Essential Quality, and New Zealand’s Jamie Richards, who is world #9 after Probabeel’s G1 win in the G1 Epsom Handicap at Randwick and the remarkable Melody Belle’s thrilling victory over stablemate Avantage in the Windsor Park Plate at Hastings. It was the 11th Group 1 win of the 6-year-old mare’s career. She is now world #50, making her the highest-ranked horse trained in New Zealand.
The biggest points gain among humans, however, came from U.S.-based Panamanian Luis Saez. Read about that here on horseracingplanet.com