Calandagan’s pulsating victory in the Japan Cup has been rewarded with the ultimate accolade as he takes over as world #1 according to Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings.
You can’t go to the Japan Cup armed with peashooters, as a dismal recent record attested. This time, however, the visitors were bringing the heavy artillery in the shape of a European champion who had completed a G1 hat-trick in the in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Champion Stakes at Ascot.
Calandagan duly succeeded where so many others had failed, getting the better of a thrilling duel with the favourite Masquerade Ball in stakes record time to become the first overseas horse since Alkaased in 2005 to claim the ¥1.090bn ($7.05m/£5.37m) contest. Indeed, not a single visitor had even made the frame in the Tokyo highlight since dual Breeders’ Cup winner Conduit in 2009.
As a result, Calandagan (#1 from #1, +110pt) takes over from Hong Kong sprint superstar Ka Ying Rising at the TRC Rankings summit as he capped a fantastic season for Arc-winning trainer Francis Graffard (stays at #7, +33pt) whose tally of 14 top-level level victories in 2025 establishes a new record mark for a French-based trainer.
‘He’s a real champion’: How we won the Japan Cup – Calandagan’s connections in their own words
“I thought we were beaten but Calandagan is tough and he battled back,” said Graffard after Sunday’s feature. “He was really, really brave. He’s an exceptional horse to have put his head in front on the line. He’s a real champion, as everybody saw today.”
The four-year-old gelding’s jockey Mickael Barzalona (#9 from #10, +26pt) also moves up a place on the jockeys’ llst, while the Aga Khan Studs operation stays at #4 among owners with a 50pt boost and sire Gleneagles stays at #10 (+48pt) among turf stallions. Japan Cup runner-up Masquerade Ball (#32 from #62, +112pt) also makes a big move on the charts – expect more of the same from him, perhaps starting in Japan’s end-of-season grand prix, the Arima Kinen.
Calandagan is the 26th individual horse to top the list since we started compiling racehorse rankings in 2014, ending the 31-week reign of Ka Ying Rising. The latter has the chance to hit back in the Hong Kong Sprint at the HKIR on Sunday December 14.
World #1s since 2/1/2014 ranked by Index - the portfolio score of their performance ratings
Calandagan’s current ‘index’ – his portfolio, in effect a running total – sits at a career-high 2252pt, compared to Ka Ying Rising’s personal best of 2243pt. The best-ever portfolio in rankings history belongs to the legendary Winx at 2717pt; Australia’s wonder woman led the rankings for a remarkable 176 weeks altogether.
For all that, Calandagan’s race rating of 132 is not the highest achieved in 2025, an honour that goes to Forever Young with his 133 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. With Hong Kong and the Arima Kinen still to come, we rate the BC Classic as the best race of 2025 on TRC Computer Race Ratings, ahead of the Champion Stakes and the Japan Cup.
Best performances of 2025 by TRC Computer Race Ratings
It wasn’t all about Japan last weekend – not quite – as there was some decent action over the Thanksgiving weekend in the US. Chad Brown (#3 from #4, +73pt) moves back into the Top 3 on our trainers’ rankings after a successful weekend on the Del Mar turf, where he claimed a pair of G1s with Hollywood Derby winner Salamis and Matriarch heroine Segesta.
Both horses represented the Juddmonte operation (stays at #3, +62pt); Brown also landed a G3 with Just Aloof.
Pennsylvania Derby runner-up Magnitude (#61 from #155, +168pt) held off Dubai World Cup winner Hit Show to win the $595,000 Clark Stakes at Churchill Downs.
• View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
Bahrain beauty Royal Champion highlights annus mirabilis for trainer Karl Burke
‘She sits alongside some of the greats’ – Via Sistina dominant in 12th G1 triumph
• 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.