The end of the year has been really satisfying for TRC Global Rankings. For a while in early November, it looked as if premature retirements, injury and disappointments might rid us of a true world champion for 2020. Then they ran the G1 Japan Cup and Almond Eye delivered.
Better was to come. In Golden Sixty, Hong Kong racing - which we have long championed - has another poster horse to go with Beauty Generation, Able Friend and Sacred Kingdom. And, dare we say it? He could be better than the lot. Who runs 1:06.99 for the last six furlongs of a mile race, round a bend and on ground graded less than really fast? Golden Sixty, that’s who.
The freshly minted world #5 is set to rise higher still, given that he hasn’t yet strayed from the friendly confines of Sha Tin. Will he prove more than a home-track hero? You bet. He was wildly impressive in the G1 Hong Kong Mile and a killer turn of foot like he has will travel.
Soon, however, Almond Eye won’t be around. After her domestic record of nine G1s (one of which was in Dubai), record prize money haul and some of the most ridiculously hot form you could see, it is time for Japan’s super mare to retire to the paddocks. But she leaves some tremendous performers in her wake, headed by the horse who was actually the best in the Japan Cup considering the weights, Contrail.
Contrail ran an amazing race in Tokyo considering he was coming off a draining win in the last leg of the Triple Crown, the Japanese St Leger. He was giving 5lb to Almond Eye (distaffers finished 1-3-4) and kept fighting to the finish. What a horse he is, and what a prospect he remains.
It’s not only Contrail who will be returning to thrill the millions of Japanese racefans. Another top filly could replace Almond Eye in the affections of the public, Gran Alegria. She doesn’t stay as far as the departing darling, but this sprinter-miler has a Golden Sixty-like burst and was the only horse to lower the colours of the champion in 2020.
But it’s another filly housed 6,000 miles from Japan who heads the TRC Global Rankings for horses when we strip out those departing the scene. And, if we said she was trained in Ireland, you would probably put your money on her home being with Aidan O’Brien at Ballydoyle.
You would be wrong.
The world’s top 12 horses still in training
What a thrill it is to see Irish legend Dermot Weld training a horse to test his incredible skill with the Thoroughbred to the full. Tarnawa has already won seven Group races, which might surprise a few, but the truth is that she is only getting started, with three G1 wins now under her belt.
Her triptych of top triumphs did not start until the September of her 4-year-old season, but she swept through the Prix Vermeille and Prix de l’Opera at ParisLongchamp like the Mistral before a tornado-like turn of foot landed her the Breeders’ Cup Turf from a poor tactical position at the end of a sprint.
In her wake that day was Mogul, the O’Brien-trained colt who had earlier won the G1 Grand Prix de Paris and went on to hack up in the G1 Vase in Hong Kong. Are you getting the hot-race vibe of Almond Eye’s form yet?
Mogul himself is one to follow, but Tarnawa is a different breed of cat. Where will Weld go with her? We all know the Arc and Breeders’ Cup will be prominent on the agenda, but what will be lined up before that?
Plenty have said that Mogul will be O’Brien’s best older horse next year, but we beg to differ. Love is the one for us. She wasn’t seen out again after August, but she is tremendously gifted and has an attitude to match.
So it looks like being tough sledding again for male horses in the top weight-for-age races – no surprise there, given recent trends. In the U.S., Monomoy Girl will still be around, if her new connections, Spendthrift Farm, follow up on their plan to return her to the amazing Brad Cox.
But male talent is returning too, especially in Britain. Battaash will continue his reign of terror whenever and wherever a brazen test of speed is on the cards, while another gelding, the globetrotting Addeybb, will be hard to beat over a mile and a quarter, especially when the mud is flying.
One horse who confuses our algorithm a little is Palace Pier. We have him significantly lower rated than the World’s Best Racehorse Ratings, for one, because his season ended with a pretty comprehensive defeat by #24 The Revenant and #324 Roseman in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on British Champions Day. Although our system forgives him somewhat, we don’t pretend that run never happened.
By contrast, Palace Pier’s G1 Prix Jacques Le Marois defeat of Alpine Star, Circus Maximus and Persian King ties him to some sturdy form lines, and we wouldn’t like to knock the G1 St James’s Palace Stakes defeat of Pinatubo either. We will see where he truly deserves to live in the hierarchy in 2021.
NOTE: Several days subsequent to the publication of this article, the retirement of the superb Magical was announced.