Baaeed’s imperious victory at Newbury on Saturday [May 14] drew comparisons with the mighty Frankel – and it also catapulted him to the top of the Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings.
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With five different #1s already in 2022, never has there been a more volatile period since our racehorse rankings were created – but Baaeed might well imbue a sense of order on the relative chaos. An emphatic 3¼-length victory on seasonal debut in the G1 Lockinge Stakes means the unbeaten colt deposes Golden Sixty with a clear lead at the head of affairs; the latter's reign lasted three weeks.
Baaee
d’s current portfolio is worth 2,108pts (compared to Golden Sixty’s 2,039) according to our system; he goes straight in at #1 because horses remain in the rankings for 150 days after their most recent performance, giving the rankings a year-round ballast.
Trained by William Haggas in Newmarket, Baaeed is a four-year-old son of Derby winner Sea The Stars (#6 from #7 on stallion rankings) carrying the famous blue-and-white Shadwell colours of the late Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, who bred him.
He could hardly have been more impressive as he took his career record to seven out of seven in the Al Shaqab-sponsored Lockinge, where he looked a class apart in dismissing the likes of Real World (#49 from #81) – never before beaten on turf – plus Sussex Stakes heroine Alcohol Free and Classic winner Mother Earth.
Winning rider Jim Crowley (#10 from #12) looked in total control throughout the mile contest. “It was like a piece of work,” he confirmed.
“He is a serious horse – it’s very exciting. I am sure Sheikh Hamdan, who spent a lifetime trying to breed a horse like this, is watching down. He has everything you want in a racehorse. I can’t think of a weakness. He looks like he could be the best I’ve ridden.”
Like Frankel, who won the Lockinge by five lengths as a four-year-old in 2012, Baaeed will now head to Royal Ascot for the Queen Anne Stakes. “I was impressed by that,” said Haggas, who is now in the Top Ten for trainers.
“He is a good horse and he has a great temperament. He was quite full of himself in the stables and brilliant when he got onto the track. He will go for the Queen Anne Stakes and if we step him up in distance he will go for the Juddmonte. It would be a shame not to try him over further than a mile.”
Asked whether Baaeed is the best horse he has trained, Haggas said: “The filly Sea Of Class was a star. Most horses with a turn of foot are good. He has a nice turn of foot, as she had.”
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.
A TRC Computer Race Rating of 129 represents the highest of Baaeed’s career, bettering the 128 from the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on his final outing of 2021 when he beat former world #1 Palace Pier.
Baaeed is the 19th different horse to top the rankings in the 437 weeks since we started collating racehorse rankings in 2014; the top three horses by weeks at #1 are Winx (162), Enable (56) and American Pharoah (42).
The most recent #1s were Palace Pier (17 weeks), St Mark’s Basilica (9), Knicks Go (11), Life Is Good (9), Nature Strip (3) and Golden Sixty (3). The last-named took the top spot after winning last month's FWD Champions Mile at Sha Tin but connections are eschewing the chance to test him abroad by ruling out a trip to Japan for the Yasuda Kinen.
Japanese no-go for Hong Kong superstar Golden Sixty
Royal Ascot-bound Nature Strip is new world #1 after Randwick triumph
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