Superstar stayer Kyprios has reaped the rewards of his remarkable comeback this season by becoming the first horse of his division ever to top Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings.
The six-year-old completed a perfect season – seven runs, seven wins – with an emphatic victory in the G2 Qipco British Champions Long Distance Cup, the opening event on the annual Champions Day card at Ascot on Saturday [Oct 19].
While competition among the stayers can hardly be described as the most intense, an emphatic 2¼-length victory over old rival Sweet William was enough for this admirable performer to supplant his Aidan O’Brien-trained stablemate City Of Troy at the top of the charts.
City Of Troy, of course, will have ample chance to hit back in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but for now Kyprios (#1 from #2, +62pt) sits at the head of affairs as his trainer’s fifth individual #1 since we started compiling racehorse rankings in 2014. The others are: City Of Troy (eight weeks at the top), Minding (2), Australia (1) and Magical (1); Kyprios is the 26th individual horse overall to top the rankings.
An eight-time G1 winner, Kyprios has now won 15 of his 19 career starts – a record all the more remarkable when it is considered that has returned in peak form after a life-threatening joint infection that derailed his 2023 season.
He had gone unbeaten in 2022 aged four, and it has been more of the same at six, when for the second time he completed the G1 hat-trick of Ascot Gold Cup, Goodwood Cup and Irish St Leger.
Saturday’s success in horrible testing conditions underfoot was straightforward indeed as the same 1-2-3 as 12 months ago came to the fore, albeit in a different order with Kyprios an imperious odds-on favourite.
“He is a very special horse,” said O’Brien, who leads the world list among trainers for the 210th week. Mind you, he has to do some work to catch up with his stable jockey Ryan Moore, who has 271 weeks at the top.
World #1s since 2014
“Ryan was in total control on him after the first furlong, and it was a joy to watch it,” O’Brien added of Kyprios’s success.
“He is relentless and has an unbelievable amount of quality, so it doesn't matter if you go slow or if you go fast, he just goes there and he switches off.”
Now finished for the season, Kyprios will be back to defend his titles in 2025. “The plan was to come here, give him the winter off, then give him two trials before the Gold Cup next year,” confirmed O’Brien. “So that’s what we are working for – we will get through the winter and the spring, and try to come back here for the Gold Cup.”
The Ascot highlight, the Qipco Champion Stakes, was billed as a match between top-class pair Calandagan and Economics. Nobody told Anmaat (#31 from #307, +304pt), however, who overcame trouble in running in the roughest of races for a 40-1 upset.
“We’ve always thought a lot of this horse,” said trainer Owen Burrows. “I know it sounds easy afterwards, but last year after he won his Group One in France, I did really fancy him for the Eclipse – but he had a very complex foot injury, which took a long time to come right.”
Runner-up Calandagan (#18 from #22, +24pt) may have been unlucky but the much-vaunted Economics (#8 from #3, -50) could not sustain his challenge and was found to have bled from the nose. Connections may have been left to rue their decision to run on the soft ground that meant the race was switched to the tight inner track.
Charyn (#5 from #16, +128pt) cemented his status as Europe’s leading miler with a fine victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, while Kalpana (#56 from #341, +257pt) looked yet another Juddmonte filly right out of the top drawer with a commanding two-length win in the G1 British Champions Filly & Mares Stakes.
Progressive three-year-old Kind Of Blue (#94 from #702, +323pt) beat 19 rivals to land the G1 British Champions Sprint Stakes. As this was only his seventh start, he looks sure to make an even bigger splash as a four-year-old.
Much metaphorical ink has been spent on gelding not being permitted to run in the Arc. This situation brought into sharper focus over the weekend, when not only were both QEII protagonists minus their reproductive capabilities, but King George winner Goliath (#4 from #15, +125pt) signed off ahead of his Japan Cup bid with victory over useful yardstick Hamish in G2 company at home in France.
Victory in Japan would propel Goliath even higher than his current position on the rankings, and the domestic defence may not necessarily be as strong as is typically the case.
While we are on the subject of Japan, last year’s fillies’ Triple Crown heroine Liberty Island is back in the Tenno Sho (Autumn) on Sunday [Oct 27]. Meanwhile, Urban Chic (#17 from #189, +279pt) jumped to the top of their Classic crop with a 2½-length victory in the Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger) under six-time JRA champion Christophe Lemaire at Kyoto racecourse.
Godolphin Japan’s leading dirt performer Lemon Pop (#32 from #73, +78pt) repeated last year’s win in the Mile Championship Nambu Hai at Morioka. Don’t be misled by the race’s international designation as a ‘Listed’ race – this is a local G1, true, but these NAR G1s are rather better than Listed races, a status that cannot be improved as long as they remain restricted races. Lemon Pop goes to stud in 2025 after ending his career in either the JBC Sprint or the Champions Cup, which he won last year.
Talking of Group-race inflation, there’s been much wailing and gnashing of teeth recently about upgrades in Australia, which has a surfeit of Pattern races. Then again, while they could probably do with losing a few, surely nobody can argue with the Everest, the world’s richest turf race, finally being granted G1 status after the rival authorities of Sydney and Melbourne buried their hatchets.
Ironically, last weekend’s eighth edition of the A$20m ($13.37m/£10.3m) sprint may not have been the strongest, despite its newly acquired status. Be that as it may, Bella Nipotina (#33 from #85, +99pt) gets a nice bump on the rankings after short-heading 2022 winner Giga Kick. The seven-year-old winner, who has been around a long time, has now won four G1s; her trainer Ciaran Maher (stays at #13, +54pt) can break into the Top Ten during the Melbourne Spring Carnival.
The Everest may have been the official feature at Randwick but there was greater interest in the latest appearance of front-running phenomenon Pride Of Jenni in the King Charles III Stakes (former George Main).
In the event, Pride Of Jenni (#9 from #7, -8pt) she was run down close home by Ceolwulf (#21 from #87, +153pt), though in reality she lost little in defeat from a wide draw that meant she had to work harder than normal for the lead. She goes again in the Cox Plate on Saturday [Oct 26].
With all this hoo-hah in Sydney, the Caulfield Cup was slightly overshadowed as Duke De Sessa – that man Maher again – held on from late-running Buckaroo (#38 from #54, +28pt). The runner-up has developed into one of Australia’s leading weight-for-age performers since leaving Joseph O’Brien.
• 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.