Bahrain’s biggest race provided the stage for trainer Karl Burke to set the seal on a truly memorable season on Friday [Nov 14] as he landed the Bahrain International Trophy with Royal Champion.
Burke, 62, was landing the first stakes victory outside Europe with the seven-year-old, whose late challenge overpowered Irish-trained Galen to claim the $1 million contest by three-quarters of a length.
Having finished a fine third to Delacroix in the Irish Champion Stakes on his previous outing, Royal Champion (#106 from #268, +157pt) is now just outside the world’s Top 100 according to Thoroughbred Racehorse Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings.
For Middleham-based Burke, the Bahrain triumph boosted him to a career-high #12 (from #16, +33pt) on our trainers’ list.
Hardly surprising, really, when Burke’s 2025 season is considered as a whole. His tally tally of 129 winners in the UK alone is a personal best – he has topped 100 in each of the last five years – and features a multitude of stakes races going back to February when he won a Listed race on the all-weather at Lingfield with Marshman.
In fact, even this is slightly misleading since Burke was on the go on December 31, 2024, when Royal Champion landed his first race for him in the Quebec Stakes, an end-of-year Listed event.
Clearly a man for all seasons, then. However, Burke’s domestic record reveals only a proportion of the story as he also sneaks into Ireland’s Top Ten trainers by prize-money – from just three winners, all of them at the Irish Champions Festival in September and highlighted by multiple G1 winner Fallen Angel’s victory in the Matron Stakes.
Fallen Angel was also successful in G1 events at home and in France, where top two-year-old Venetian Sun took the Prix Morny.
Burke’s success has largely come in tandem with stable jockey Clifford Lee, currently sidelined with serious injury, leaving James Doyle (#51 from #57, +21pt) to deputise in Bahrain on Royal Champion.
Doyle dedicated the win to his absent colleague, while Burke paid tribute to the much-travelled winner, who joined his string only last winter after an abortive spell in Australia.
“He’s a very game horse and I'm delighted to have a winner from my first runner in Bahrain,” said the trainer, speaking to the Racing Post. “They didn't go strong and it helped him get into a rhythm, but he stays very well and he could be worth going over a mile and a half next year.”
The highest-ranked horse in action last week was Arima Kinen winner Regaleira (#22 from #60, +162pt), who swooped down the centre of the track at Kyoto to claim the Queen Elizabeth II Cup in stakes record time under Keita Tosaki (#21 from #26, +31pt).
Having sustained a chip fracture in her off foreleg after landing Japan’s end-of-season championship in 2024, the four-year-old had returned to winning ways in the G2 All Comers on her previous outing.
In recording a 14th JRA G1 win for trainer Tetsuya Kimura (#19 from #22, +45pt), Regaleira won by an easy length and three-quarters, stopping the clock in 2m11.0s for the 2,200 metres (1m3f).
Leading Aussie-based sprinter Jimmysstar (#47 from #102, +127pt) has enjoyed a fruitful spring campaign, having finished third in the Everest from a wide draw before winning the A$3 million Russell Balding Stakes.
Ridden by Ethan Brown (#76 from #91, +25pt), the six-year-old gelding was described as “a ripper” by trainer Ciaron Maher (stays at #8. +17pt) after taking his G1 tally to three in the CF Orr Stakes over 1,400 metres (7f) at Caulfield on Saturday.
This was a notable result for NZ-based sire Per Incanto (#36 from #46 among turf sires, +37pt), responsible for both the winner and third-placed Evaporate.
German owner Eckhard Sauren (#42 from #94, +84pt) made the most of the last knockings of the European season with a Group-race double over the weekend as two-year-old Lammi scored in G3 company at Krefeld on Saturday before Next Mine landed the G2 Premio Vittoria di Capua on Sunday’s card at San Siro in Milan. Both were ridden by German champion Thore Hammer Hansen (#54 from #66, +36pt).
• 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.