Star miler Palace Pier is the new TRC Global Rankings world #1 after a devastating win in the G1 Lockinge Stakes at Newbury in Britain last Saturday.
The 4-year-old – regarded by his world #1 jockey Frankie Dettori as potentially the best he has ridden – takes over from Japanese legend Almond Eye, who now drops out of the rankings after being retired last year (with immediate effect, horses drop out of the rankings after 150 days off the track – this was formerly 180 days).
TRC Global Rankings are a principled hierarchy of the best Horses, Jockeys, Owners, Trainers and Sires in the world, ranked using statistical learning techniques to best explain previous results and to predict future ones.
Unlike other systems, competitors gain their standing not by their best effort alone but according to the breadth and depth of their resume. Lightly raced horses can make it to the top if their performances stand out enough, but our system cares about the reliability of a horse as well as its merit – consistency counts.
According to TRC Computer Race Ratings, Palace Pier put up the best performance in the world so far in 2021 at Newbury. The John Gosden-trained colt performed to TRC 125 in beating highly progressive mare Lady Bowthorpe by 1½ lengths, with the rest of the field strung out seven lengths and more behind him. And we know he can rate higher still, coming into the season already on TRC 128 thanks to victories in the G1 St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot and the G1 Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville.
This is how the current rankings stand:
Last week, the rankings included Almond Eye at #1 and the Aidan O’Brien-trained mare Magical at #8. Now that sufficient time has passed for a new generation of top horses to establish themselves, these outstanding horses give way to a new wave. And one look at the table above reveals that Palace Pier may have work on his hands to retain the top spot, with a whole raft of talent queuing up to take their shot in the coming weeks.
Until then, Palace Pier stands as the 15th world #1 in the 383 weeks of the TRC Global Rankings era. Since we switched to producing our own performance figures, TRC rankings history has been recalculated and the following list supercedes (but is highly similar to) any previous iteration:
Palace Pier is the fifth TRC world #1 to be trained in Britain, joining his own brilliant sire Kingman, Golden Horn, Enable and Ghaiyyath with that accolade.
The last-named was trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin, but it is Gosden who is responsible for the other three. The current world #2 (who has now formed a partnership with his son, Thady) is the only trainer who has produced more than one world #1.
Horses from five different nations – the USA, Great Britain, Australia, France and Japan – have made it to TRC #1. Of the 15 champions, the Australian-trained mare Winx has been at the top for the most weeks (182). The best horse not to be #1 according to our ratings is Dubai World Cup, Pegasus World Cup and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Arrogate, who was in the top four rankings for 13 weeks in 2016 and 2017.
With news that Hong Kong’s star miler Golden Sixty is due to skip his intended assignment next weekend and shut it down for the campaign over there, Palace Pier’s first usurper could be Gran Alegria.
Like Palace Pier, the Japanese-trained mare is a brilliant miler (TRC 126 last year, three times), which was seen once again when she destroyed fellow distaffers in the G1 Victoria Mile last Sunday by four lengths (TRC 121+).
Gran Alegria’s victory did not register on the same level as Palace Pier because of the quality of the opposition and she sits at world #4 right now, but if the 5-year-old defends her title against open competition in the G1 Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo early next month, the top spot surely beckons.
Then there is Palace Pier’s own stablemate Mishriff. Last year’s Prix de Jockey Club winner (TRC 123) has picked up two rich international prizes this season, the Saudi Cup (TRC 124) and Longines Dubai Sheema Classic (TRC 122). The current world #3 is building a world champion’s resume and could bolster it at Royal Ascot next month, when he is due to contest the G1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
Palace Pier is due in the G1 Queen Anne Stakes at the same sparkling fixture.
Don’t forget the Japanese Triple Crown winner Contrail, who could have a lot to say about the destination of the world championship when 2021 is in the books.
Rated TRC 127 last year when taking his Graded-race tally to six, including four at the top level, the 4-year-old could reappear in the G1 Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin next month, a race won last year by the top-class Japanese mare Chrono Genesis, herself most recently touched off by Mishriff in Dubai (the form has already by been boosted by close third Loves Only You, subsequently the winner of the G1 QEII Cup at Sha Tin).
Comparing TRC Computer Race Ratings and World’s Best Racehorse Rankings
Last week, an update to the esteemed LonginesWorld’s Best Racehorse Rankings – the sport’s official performance ratings – was provided on the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) website. The ratings do not include Palace Pier’s Lockinge or Gran Alegria’s Victoria Mile and were given for performances 120+ as follows:
TRC Computer Race Ratings were designed on exactly the same scale, allowing for near direct comparison. However, our research tells us that performances ratings at Group and Graded level explain the past more effectively and are more accurate out of sample (in future races) when the following special features are employed:
1) We do not presume the effect of weight. This is especially important with weight-for-age and weight-for-sex allowances, which vary across the planet. We rate female racehorses according to their class and do not give males extra credit for conceding them weight, especially in defeat. This leads to our classifications being more cleanly based on merit
2) We use a different scale of exchange for lengths beaten and ratings points.
Our research tells us that this scale should vary more widely than the ones most handicappers around the world apply. In particular, ours is more non-linear. We expand distances between half a length and five lengths and contract larger ones. These allowances are shrunk down the field, so that the distance between horses is more significant among the first two or three finishers.
Japanese racing, in particular, is much better explained by this approach because the distances between champions and other horses on the track is often compacted by the fast conditions. If a horse wins by a wide margin there, we won’t expand the distances still further, but in many races a length is worth more than the two or three points accorded elsewhere.
3) We do not use humans but a computer. Human experts are best employed in the design of computer handicapping algorithms, but the billions of mathematical relationships expressed by the results of races is best left to machines. (You can read the mathematical underpinnings of our system here.)
That said, we feel the panel of international handicappers who produce the WBRR do a very good job.
Here, then, are the performances which the TRC Computer Race Ratings system rates at 120+ for 2021:
Notes
We rated Charlatan (who appears in the WBRR table) TRC 119 in the Saudi Cup, but TRC 124 for both the G1 Malibu and G1 Arkansas Derby last year;
Efforia (who appears in the WBRR table) is the G1 Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2000 Guineas) winner; we rated his win TRC 118;
Glory Vase gets his WBRR figure of 120 because he was conceding weight to both the fillies he split, Loves Only You and Daring Tact in the QEII Cup at Sha Tin on April 25; we rated the first three TRC 119-115-114 with the differences between figures because we award much higher differences in ratings points for small, yet decisive margins.
Glory Vase was formerly a G1 winner, but not since 2019, and was fourth in a G2 (TRC 108) prior to his Sha Tin run.
This represents a major difference in methodology – we rate this performance 5lb lower than WBRR because the TRC algorithm tries to tie in recent form and is influenced not just by Glory Vase’s most recent run, but by Daring Tact’s. While we have old ratings of 121 for Glory Vase and 121 for Daring Tact, the latter’s 4-year-old debut in the G2 Kinko Sho registered just 110 with us and our algorithm needs more evidence she has trained on.
It will be very interesting to see what Glory Vase and Daring Tact do next.
Life Is Good was the highest-rated U.S.-trained 3-year-old with WBRR – ahead of the Kentucky Derby principals. We rate his G2 San Felipe win TRC 118.
Lord North: We have always had him lower than WBRR. We rate his Dubai Turf win only TRC 116. The former Cambridgeshire winner has tended to get ironed out when running against genuinely top-class horses, except for his Prince of Wales’s Stakes win (TRC 118), which came in a moderate time after the field had gone too fast early.
Monomoy Girl was conceding 6lb when Letruska beat her a nose in the G1 Apple Blossom. We awarded the winner TRC 115 for this and her TRC 114. So, we have the same rating on the race as WBRR but we have Monomoy Girl 6lb lower on account of the weight carried. We are a little more sceptical for now that she retains her brilliant ability.