What a year it has been internationally. European racing was as strong as ever, while that of the Far East and Oceania continued on an upward trend. While U.S. racing saw its fair share of controversy, there was a stellar Classic crop and the quality of the action took a step back towards the zenith.
However, none of the 3-year-olds could contend with a brilliant older horse – already proven on the international stage – and it is he who shares our surface-specific Horse of the Year award with a turf star who carried all before him in Ireland, Britain and France.
So here we compare the TRC Global Horse Rankings on December 31 with those entering 2021. A fair degree of turnover naturally occurs each year due to retirement and injury, but the names who featured at the end of 2020 stuck around well enough as a group – a positive trend for the sport if it persists.
We have also collated the data specific to the last 12 months to further highlight the movers and shakers at the top of the figures.
You can read the Jockeys’ review here, the Trainers’ review here and the Sires’ review here.
HORSES
This was the Top Ten on January 1, 2021:
And this is the Top Ten in the latest rankings:
This is the data specific to 2021:
ANALYSIS
Judged by 2021 data only, the Horse of the Year should be ST MARK’S BASILICA, according to our algorithm. He won all four G1s this year, including two French Classics, the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown and the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown. In the latter, he cleared right away from proven international G1 winners in Addeybb and Mishriff and recorded his career-best effort on our TRC Computer Race Ratings (TRC) of 130.
We have decided to split the award this year by making it surface-specific.
St Mark’s Basilica ended the year as the TRC world #2 behind the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner KNICKS GO. As the table of 2021 data shows, we ranked his performance slightly lower than the Aidan O’Brien-trained 3-year-old last year, but, Knicks Go currently sits at TRC world #1 overall, in part due to his form from the previous campaign, so we decided we should not split them. He recorded the year’s highest TRC on dirt of 131 at Del Mar.
Yes, St Mark’s Basilica is the turf horse with the greater strike rate, Knicks Go the dirt champion with the greater volume of success. Overall, we narrowly prefer the latter’s exploits, but it is splitting hairs.
In addition to his 4-fold last year, St Mark’s Basilica was a G1 winner as a 2-year-old in 2020 and was undoubtedly a champion on the track. We are not splitting them for the purposes of year-end awards.
The table of Top Ten performers for 2021 highlights what an excellent campaign it was down under. Turf monster Nature Strip confirmed he is the best sprinter in the world on either surface – Jackie’s Warrior was a contender for this honour on dirt until he disappointed at the Breeders’ Cup – while Zaaki and G1 Melbourne Cup winner Verry Elleegant made headlines around the world.
In Japan, it was great to see Contrail justify the longstanding regard of our rankings by winning the Japan Cup. But we did not think this worthy of his being the highest-ranked horse in his country. That could have been the deadly distaffers Chrono Genesis or GranAlegria, but the TRC algorithm absolutely loves the 3-year-old colt Efforia, whose TRC 131 to win the G1 Tenno Sho was the highest recorded on turf of the year.
To seal his position as world #3 at the end of the campaign, he followed up in the G1 Arima Kinen, though we agreed with his trainer that he was not quite at his best on the day.
In Europe, we said goodbye to one champion miler in Palace Pier, but hello to another one who is sticking around in Baaeed.
The former has a deeper CV as things stand, but the latter earned a very similar Performance Index in our end-of-year classifications by winning the showdown in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on British Champions’ Day at Ascot.
There is so much to look forward to this year, not least the clash between Knicks Go and exceptional Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Life Is Good in the $3m G1 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on January 29.