TRC is seven today. The site, founded by former New York Racing Association President and CEO Charles Hayward with a brief to delve behind the scenes in Thoroughbred racing not only in North America but all around the world, began publishing on January 24, 2014, featuring a range of articles from Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
To mark our first seven years, I have picked out seven of the most visually impressive performances on the racetracks of the world in that time.
There are two main criteria a run must have had for inclusion - it must have been produced by a champion, and it must make you gasp to watch it again.
Cards on the table here: These are my personal choices based on more than half a century of watching the sport. Most of you will disagree with some (or possibly all) of them, and indeed there are countless other examples of breathtaking victories that were strong contenders for this list. While you may believe other performances are more deserving of one of the seven places than some or all of these, I defy anyone to say not one makes them sit back and think ‘wow’.
The list is in chronological order.
American Pharoah
(Victor Espinoza)
Haskell Invitational
Monmouth Park, U.S.
August 2, 2015
It may not be the Triple Crown hero’s most famous or most important victory, but it was the prettiest, the one that illustrated best what an awesome specimen he was. He’s already doing little more than a canter as he and Victor Espinoza come into the stretch, the rest of the field - some of the best 3-year-olds in North America - already done with. It’s barely even as much as a canter in that final furlong.
Lady Aurelia
(Frankie Dettori)
Queen Mary Stakes
Royal Ascot, UK
June 15, 2016
Horses shouldn’t be able to do this. It’s a 5-furlong G2 featuring some of the fastest juvenile fillies in Britain and Ireland, the hottest race of its kind in the first half of the season in Europe, even though it’s hardly surprising that the filly Wesley Ward has sent over from America should be in front and going well at halfway. What happened next is surprising, though. Look at how quickly she pulls away from them in the last two furlongs, and by how far. What’s happened to the laws of nature there? How come that’s even possible?
Lady Aurelia wasn’t the most consistent of runners, but at her best she was electric and a joy to behold.
California Chrome
(Victor Espinoza)
Pacific Classic
Del Mar, U.S.
August 21, 2016
Chrome was the blue-collar champion, and one of the best-loved horses of recent times (you should see the number of hits stories about him get on TRC), yet in this race he was pure aristocracy. The Pacific Classic was his finest performance out of many fine performances, a day when his fans could rejoice that he really was as good as they’d always hoped. See Espinoza easing him right down at the end - that’s Beholder hard at it and outclassed in second, and she won this same race just as easily 12 months before, as well as another ten G1s in her great career. This is how Chrome should be remembered as he sets out to do a Sunday Silence in Japan.
Winx
(Hugh Bowman)
Cox Plate
Moonee Valley, Australia
October 22, 2016
I was nervous for her before this one. Her legend was already building up a head of steam even though her unbeaten run stood at a mere 12 at the time, but I had bought into it and here she was against a new force, Hartnell, who had won his last three in mighty fashion and was being backed to beat her. As Bowman swept her effortlessly past him and everything else round the wide outside into the short Moonee Valley straight, it was almost embarrassing to think we could have entertained any idea that poor Hartnell had the remotest chance. It was unlike most of her races, where Bowman got her to do just enough to ensure victory. This time he was emphatic. It was Winx’s second win in the Southern Hemisphere’s most prestigious horserace. The mare, a gift from the gods to racing, ended up with an unprecedented four, and TRC readers voted her World Horse of the Decade at the end of 2019.
Arrogate
(Mike Smith)
Dubai World Cup
Meydan, UAE
March 25, 2017
Incredibly, Arrogate didn’t even make it into the top ten runners of this latest decade in the recent industry poll celebrating the best Eclipse Award winners since the honours were introduced 50 years ago. The problem, I suppose, was the three uninspiring defeats he suffered back in the States a few months after this logic-defying triumph in Dubai. How on earth was it possible for any horse to maintain such a sustained surge round the entire field (headed by Gun Runner, for pity’s sake) after breaking so poorly? I like to think he would have made that list over most of those who did had this run been his last.
Chautauqua
(Tommy Berry)
TJ Smith Stakes
Randwick, Australia
April 1, 2017
This is my favourite, and one I watch fairly regularly, especially if I want to show friends how exciting racing can be. It’s a big field, but it’s easy enough to spot Chautauqua - he’s the grey who drops in well behind the rest of the runners for half the race. He used to do that most of the time. It was his signature, if you like. So here he is, trying to win the A$2 million, 6-furlong TJ Smith for the third year in succession and, into the straight with barely two furlongs to go, he’s in an impossible position, lengths off the pace, practically blocked in. Even a furlong (200m) out, he’s maybe ten lengths back. He can’t win. It’s impossible. You wouldn’t have him on your mind. But he does. That’s what he used to do. Six G1s, five in Australia, one in Hong Kong. You could pick any one of them and it would be a contender to make this list.
When racing is like this, so thrilling and spectacular, you don’t need anything else to sell it to the mass market.
Lys Gracieux
(Damian Lane)
Arima Kinen
Nakayama, Japan
December 22, 2019
You might need to watch this more than once, just to appreciate the class, the agility, the easy grace with which this fabulous mare demolished a field containing all the biggest names in Japan at the time, including the great Almond Eye, sadly out of step on this occasion. It’s doubtful whether she would have been able to cope with Lys Gracieux on this day anyhow. To be honest, I’m confident there wasn’t any horse anywhere who could have coped with her. To my mind, the fact that this performance didn’t put her clear at the top of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings for 2019 is a vivid illustration of at least one major flaw in that system. (I’m not the only one who thinks that, by the way.)
That’s seven, but I’m going to cheat a little bit now. There were many, many other performances that could have made the list - high among them are Mendelssohn’s breathtaking 18½-length emergence as a potential dirt star in the 2018 UAE Derby (he wasn’t actually quite as good as it appeared, it turned out), Pinatubo’s nine-length romp in the 2019 National Stakes at the Curragh (he wasn’t either), Ghaiyyath taking the Grosser Preis von Baden by 14 lengths in 2019, and the wonderful, exhausting stretch duel between Beholder and Songbird in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Distaff - but there was one particular effort I really struggled with leaving out. So here it is anyway …
Stradivarius
(Frankie Dettori)
Gold Cup
Royal Ascot, England
June 18, 2020
Even his detractors - and there are a few who believe he has had it easy in an era of relatively ordinary stayers - had to salute Stradivarius after this definitive display of superiority in the definitive race for stayers. In fact, they could have been doffing their hats before the field even reached the Ascot straight, so comprehensively in control was he. Rarely has even Dettori enjoyed a final two furlongs as much.