At times it may have seemed that the hype balloon was ready to burst – but the much-vaunted City Of Troy has delivered on his two-year-old promise by claiming top spot on Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings.
A brilliant all-the-way victory from a star-studded field in last week’s Juddmonte International catapulted the Ballydoyle colt to #1 (from #4, +138pt), thereby ending a 17-week stint in pole position for Hong Kong’s multiple G1 scorer Romantic Warrior.
A son of Triple Crown winner Justify(#15 from #18, +48pt on overall sires’ list), City Of Troy joins his trainer Aidan O’Brien and jockey Ryan Moore at the head of their respective lists.
His Guineas flop a distant memory, the Derby winner triumphed under a masterly ride from Moore, who grasped the nettle from the start and then wound things up after they turned into the straight.
Admittedly, City Of Troy had things very much his own way in the £1.25m contest, but you could only be impressed as he put his rivals away, although Royal Ascot winner Calandagan (#16 from #57, +148pt) closed with determination to reduce the winning margin to only a length. The remainder, led home by another three-year-old in Ghostwriter, were 3½ lengths away in third.
Unsurprisingly, the post-race plaudits weren’t slow in coming. Asked on ITV Racing if City Of Troy was the best he had ever trained, O’Brien commented: “Yes, we thought that as a two-year-old, we always did think it.
"Everything he's done from the day we trained him suggested that. He was the most special horse we ever had."
City Of Troy’s sights will now be aligned on an audacious switch to dirt for the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar, for which he has been promoted to 3-1 favourite with European bookmakers.
“The lads can do whatever they want but we always dreamed that he would be a Classic horse," the trainer said. "He stays, he's tough, we're hoping the lads may go to the Classic with him, that would be some dream for him."
Lying in wait at Del Mar will be last year’s US champion juvenile Fierceness, who entered the Top 5 when holding off star filly Thorpedo Anna in a stirring edition of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga.
At #4 (from #18, +184pt), he is now the highest-ranked US three-year-old – albeit just one place above the runner-up.
All roads now lead to the Breeders’ Cup Classic for Fierceness, who has gone a long way to redeeming a reputation damaged by his lacklustre display as Kentucky Derby favourite.
“I really think the key to the success in the Jim Dandy and Travers was when we all made the decision to pass the Belmont,” said trainer Todd Pletcher. “For whatever reason the Derby was really hard on him.
“We worked him one time and he just wasn’t himself, so we made the decision to pass the Belmont.”
On the other hand, after losing little in defeat Thorpedo Anna is set to return to her own sex in the BC Distaff.
Among other notable movers over a big weekend at Saratoga were Domestic Product (#19 from #85, +185pt), who won the H Allen Jerkens Memorial, and Mullikin (#32 from #287, +325pt), who drew away for a comfortable victory in the $500,000 Forego. The Breeders’ Cup Sprint is the target for the latter, a first G1 winner for trainer Rodolphe Brisset (#179 from #235, +39pt).
A phalanx of Australian-trained horses are back in the rankings as G1 action returned with the Winx Stakes at Randwick. There was a fitting result as well, as Via Sistina charged late to come home at the head of a 1-2-3 for Chris Waller (stays at #8, +44pt), who trained the mighty mare in whose honour the seven-furlong contest is named.
In a thriller, #38 Via Sistina touched off her stablemate #33 Zougotcha to record her second G1 success since joining Waller from Newmarket-based George Boughey.
View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
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• 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.