There can be little argument about last week’s star performance ahead of the latest rankings shake-up: step forward Locked, who won the storied Santa Anita Handicap by a record margin on 8½ lengths on Saturday’s card [March 1] in California.
Beaten favorite in the Pegasus on his previous outing, the Todd Pletcher-trained four-year-old made no mistake this time as he swept past eventual runner-up Express Train on entering the stretch before clearing away for an odds-on success in the fabled contest better known as a the Big ’Cap.
Blinkered first time, Locked was giving 4lb to the second-placed horse. The son of Gun Runner catapults himself into the Top 20 on Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings, where he now stands #16 (from #121, +270pt).
“The horse has a nice stride, when he gets into the stride he covers a lot of ground,” said winning rider Jose Ortiz (#34 from #36, +13pt). “I feel great to win a race like this with a horse like Locked, he is unbelievable. I really loved him since he was a two-year-old.”
Although East Coast-based Pletcher (#10 from #12, +70pt) returns to the Top Ten among trainers, the honors in that department must go to Michael McCarthy (#34 from #49, +97pt), who won four races on an 11-race card at Santa Anita, including the G1 Kilroe Mile with Formidable Man (#115 from #214, +64pt) and the G2 San Felipe with leading Kentucky Derby contender Journalism (#74 from #426, +236pt).
“It was a memorable day,” McCarthy said on Sunday morning. “I’m just very pleased for my guys at the barn. It takes a lot to have a day like yesterday. It was a real team effort.”
Dubai’s stakes-laden Super Saturday card also had an effect on the rankings, with the region’s top sprinter Tuz (#13 from #28, +84pt) continuing on his merry ways at Meydan with his fourth win of an unbeaten season – and his fifth in a row going back to last year’s Dubai Golden Shaheen on World Cup night.
The remarkable eight-year-old trounced his G3 rivals in the Mahab Al Shimaal, scoring by five lengths over Japanese challenger American Stage after contributing to blistering fractions up front, as per usual.
“He’s a streetfighter, he just keeps coming back – he’s like Muhammad Ali!” said trainer Bhupat Seemar (#44 from #69, +72pt). “He’s made history by becoming the first horse to win all the big dirt sprints. There will be some good sprinters here for the Dubai Golden Shaheen, but we have home turf.”
Godolphin globetrotter Nations Pride (#27 from #66, +100pt) returned to winning ways in the G2 Singspiel, while Imperial Emperor (#67 from #902, +425pt) is in line for a crack at the Dubai World Cup after a runaway victory for Seemar in the G2 Al Maktoum Classic.
Ryan Moore’s long-held ascendancy at the top of the jockeys’ list is under serious threat from James McDonald (stays at #2, +23pt), who is now only 16pts adrift of the world leader after a G1 double at Randwick for trainer Chris Waller (stays at #6, +14pt).
The Aussie-based Kiwi landed the Surround Stakes on leading three-year-old filly Lady Shenandoah (#19 from #51, +135pt) – and then 35 minutes later he was back in the winner’s enclosure as Via Sistina (stays at #4, +27pt) recorded her seventh G1 success in 12 months since moving to Australia.
The mare was made to work hard, mind you, as she held stablemate Fangirl by a neck to claim a thrilling edition of the Verry Elleegant Stakes (former Chipping Norton).
“I knew it was going to be a battle of tactics, and James was concerned about the draw (barrier eight), in terms of where we would get to,” said Waller. “The track is racing pretty quick today and it is hard to make up a lot of ground so the last 200 metres I was proud, simple as that.
"Unfortunately, there had to be a winner,” added the trainer, who completed a 1-2-3 with Lindermann. “It’s been a great story. Twelve months ago she wasn’t even in our lives, just a horse in quarantine and we were just getting started to know her. What’s happened in the past 12 months … it’s quite remarkable.”
• View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
• 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.