Four winners from Breeders’ Cup Saturday feature in the latest edition of Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings – with eight in the top 30
There are times when the addition of the suffix ‘World Championships’ to the Breeders’ Cup can feel like a tiresome piece of self-aggrandising marketing spiel, little more than unnecessary hyperbole.
Not this time, however. Or almost, because although Japanese superstar Equinox remains unchallenged as world #1 for the 33rd week since his Dubai success, no fewer than eight of the nine winners from Breeders’ Cup Saturday at Santa Anita now reside in the Top 30 according to Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings.
That, by any standards, is quite a haul – and four of them are in the Top Ten, headed by the Bill Mott-trained sprint pair Elite Power (#2 from #5, +130pt) and Cody’s Wish (#3 from #6, +101pt), who head into retirement after completing back-to-back successes in the BC Sprint and Dirt Mile respectively.
Elite Power goes to stud at Juddmonte’s US arm for an initial fee of $50,000 while Cody’s Wish goes to Darley’s Jonabell Farm at $75,000. “I was very fortunate to have those two back in training,” said Bill Mott (#9 from #10, +85pt).
“How lucky is that? Ninety per cent of the time, horses win a Breeders’ Cup race and they are off to the stud barn. I must have said a prayer that I would get them back and we did for another season.”
Mott, best known for the great Cigar, now has 15 Breeders’ Cup wins to his name, having also saddled Just F Y I to win the Juvenile Fillies on Friday.
“I knew I was pretty loaded with Cody’s Wish and Elite Power,” he added. “I knew we were in pretty deep water with War Like Goddess and she ran a good race but we ran against some of the best Europeans.
“The unknown was Just F Y I who showed up. You just never know if they are going to reach this level off of a two-race career.”
Also now in the upper echelons of the TRC Rankings are dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin (#5 from #21, +170pt) – who knows how high he’d be were it not for that pair of clunkers earlier this year? – and star filly Inspiral (#7 from #12, +62pt).
Beneath them we have Master Of The Seas (#14 from #26, +96pt), White Abarrio (#15 from #82, +277pt), Goodnight Olive (#25 from #52, +133pt) and Idiomatic (#29 from #43, +83pt). The odd one out is BC Turf Sprint winner Nobals (#137 from #677, +258pt).
By any measure, this is a prominent showing, suggesting of a vintage Breeders’ Cup in terms of pure class – and the likes of White Abarrio will have every chance of ranking higher after trainer Rick Dutrow outlined a schedule for 2024 taking in the likes of the Saudi Cup and the Dubai World Cup.
“From all the horses we’ve seen run, I think that it’s going to take a big effort for a good horse to beat him in his next start,” said Dutrow. “It’s going to take a good horse to run a big race to beat them because this next race seems like it is absolutely tailor-made for him, a mile and an eighth around one turn.”
On the other side of the horse racing planet, 7-1 shot Without A Fight added to his Caulfield Cup laurels with an emphatic 2¼-length victory in the Melbourne Cup. Trained by the Freedman team and ridden by Mark Zahra, the six-year-old moves up to #22 (from #46, +132pt).
• Unlike traditional methods of racehorse rankings, TRC Global Rankings are a measure of an individual’s level of achievement over a rolling three-year period, providing a principled hierarchy of the leading horses, jockeys, trainers, owners and sires using statistical learning techniques. Racehorse rankings can be compared to similar exercises in other sports, like the golf’s world rankings or the ATP rankings in tennis.
They are formulated from the last three years of races we consider Group or Graded class all over the world and update automatically each week according to the quality of a horse’s performances and their recency, taking into account how races work out.
• Visit the Breeders’ Cup website
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View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires