Ka Ying Rising has overtaken a Hong Kong record set by Silent Witness, winning 18 races consecutively.
It’s all about Ka Ying Rising this week, our #1 horse having added 87 points after success in The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup (his record-breaking 18th consecutive victory).
Elsewhere, however, there have been changes to the top five in three classifications.
Charlie Appleby has dropped to #4 in the Trainers table, with Chad Brown ascending to the #3 spot, behind Aidan O’Brien and Bob Baffert.
The Ka Ying Syndicate, meanwhile, have entered the Owners top five, knocking Sunday Racing to six.
There’s a new entry to the Turf Sires top five, too, with Night Of Thunder adding 23 points to see him swap places with Galileo.
We’ve been doing these rankings for about 15 years now and Ka Ying Rising is by far the best sprinter we’ve encountered.
A total of 26 horses have earned a Computer Race Rating of 130 or more, but only one sprinter.
People often ask where Ka Ying Rising stands in the pantheon of sprinters (they seem to focus on sprinters, though I think it could be generalised to all horses).
Anyway, to answer the question: what would it take for you to say that a horse is definitively better than Ka Ying Rising? It would be tough.
OK, you might get a horse who comes along and wins the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by 20 lengths, or maybe one who wins a few of Europe’s top sprints.
But racing as consistently as Ka Ying Rising – and bear in mind we’re not giving him credit for the style of his victories – is hard to match.
If there were a horse good enough to trouble him, then he may well be able to extent his figures still further, though it’s questionable whether he’d be able to sustain them.
As far as longevity is concerned, it’s to a horse’s advantage to win with something in hand, though to do that you’ve got to have the merit. It’s a sort of circular question as to what’s more important: merit or consistency.
I think Ka Ying Rising is a phenomenon and although he has been given his due status by many in the sport, he hasn’t been given it by everyone.
I think, even though we’re looking at a really strong year of racing, with many top horses staying in training, he has already raised the bar beyond the capabilities of any other horse on the planet.
It’s possible that Sovereignty will turn out to be the modern incarnation of Secretariat, or that Calandagan (#3) could go further than what he achieved as a four-year-old, but it would still be hard for any horse to equal or surpass what Ka Ying Rising has shown us in two starts this year.
I think he’ll remain the top Global Rankings horse for as long as the rules allow. That’s to say, until 100 days after his last race.
We should note that the horses ranked just below him – Forever Young, Calandagan, Romantic Warrior and Via Sistina – are themselves galacticos who’ve all won outside their home jurisdictions.
Ka Ying Rising, though, is clearly the best of the best, and Helios Express, by the way, who chased the great horse home, went up from #68 to #49.
Japanese jump up the table
Costa Nova won his second February Stakes (one of Japan’s most important dirt races) at the weekend.
As we’ve said before, once a horse has done it twice, we’re inclined to take it a lot more seriously. Correspondingly, he moves up from #178 to #23.
Is he a viable candidate to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, given that he’s clearly one of Japan’s best dirt horses?
The answer is no.
That’s merely due to the current standard of dirt horses. We were reminded by the Saudi Cup of the standard of dirt horses towards the very top.
Forever Young has three ratings in excess of 130 and we haven’t seen what Sovereignty can do yet this season.
So, I’m sceptical that Costa Nova can match strides with the likes of Forever Young and Sovereignty, but we’ll see whether he gets the chance. Japanese horses regularly confound those of us in the West who are sceptical of their potential and ability.
Pericles promising
Pericles, who won the Futurity at Caulfield, is now up to #34 (from #111). He’s tough and consistent, and it’s the depth of CV (rather than the actual height of it) that has propelled him into the top 40.
Although I think he has only won four Group races from 23, he has an awful lot of credible efforts to his name, and that’s why we’ve recognised his toughness and consistency.
That said, he’s unlikely to go into the top 20 as things stand.
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We examined changes in the European Pattern this year
View the latest Global Rankings for horses, owners, breeders, trainers and jockeys