The Japanese super mare Almond Eye will end the year as the #1 ranked racehorse in the world by TRC Global Rankings. No horse can match the combination of her expansive portfolio – encompassing no fewer than nine G1 wins – and her resounding end to the campaign.
Despite racing just four times in 2020, she won G1s at a mile, a mile and a quarter and a mile and a half. And her form is rock solid for the following reasons:
The horses she has beaten have an outstanding record when she is not around – the same aspect that distinguished Frankel and a sure sign of a horse who deserves to be regarded as a champion.
In the G1 Japan Cup, she had male (Contrail) and female (Daring Tact) Japanese Triple Crown winners in her wake; that pair have dominated large fields of their own age and sex repeatedly. The first five – including last year’s G1 Hong Kong Vase winner Glory Vase – were clear.
In the G1 Tenno Sho (Autumn), she was followed home by Fierement, who had won the Tenno Sho (Spring) twice, and Chrono Genesis, who was coming off a hugely impressive six-length win in the G1 Takarazuka Kinen.
And, her only defeat was a second place to another brilliant filly, world #14 Gran Alegria, in the G1 Yasuda Kinen over a mile. That runner went on to show the kind of acceleration rarely witnessed when landing the G1 Mile Championship, and before that she had taken out the G1 Sprinters Stakes.
All this covers directly or indirectly virtually every good race in Japan. In short, Almond Eye has displayed her dominance over the herd like no other racehorse on the planet. But her influence is not confined to her home country: On her only start in Dubai, she cleared away from the $6 million G1 Dubai Turf field before idling in front – very much her trademark.
While other outstanding horses around the world either don’t have a CV with anything like the same breadth and depth (Authentic, Tarnawa, Tiz The Law, Maximum Security) or are leaving question marks over their dominance as they depart the scene (Enable, Ghaiyyath, and Magical, who is scheduled to have one more run - in Hong Kong on December 13.), Almond Eye galloped across the line at Tokyo to answer every question she had been set with a flourish that surely entitles her to be regarded as the most fitting for the title of world championship racehorse 2020.
The problem for some is they cannot rate her as such.
We would argue that collateral form ratings fail to capture the true quality of Japanese racing – under Japanese conditions. We have seen Japanese horses get massive ratings from the Longines World’s Best Racehorse system outside of Japan, such as Just A Way (2014 G1 Dubai Turf at Meydan) in and A Shin Hikari (2016 G1 Prix d’Ispahan at Longchamp), and we would argue that the exchange of ratings points for lengths does not line up between Europe and Japan.
So many big figures in Europe take place with cut in the ground on tough, galloping courses. It is much easier for a horse to win by a wide margin – and thus receive a maximal figure – when runners are tiring badly behind it. But Japanese races mostly take place on very firm surfaces and wide margins are the exception rather than the rule.
Ghaiyyath’s credentials not put to the final test
The 2020 Japan Cup was run in 2:23. Compare that with the winning time of Sottsass in the Arc of 2:39.
That difference of 16 seconds is nearly a furlong and a half! If many Japanese races went on for an extra 16 seconds, the winning margins would be trebled or quadrupled. And this means that the whole ratings network is compressed, rather than expanded as it is in Europe.
Ghaiyyath has the accolade of the world’s highest-rated horse. He was a top-notch runner, and his finest exploits took place on a sound surface. Full credit to him, but he disappeared to stud before his credentials were put to the test in autumn championships – no reason to doubt his best figures but we are ranking horses here, not simply rating their best performances, and we give credit to horses the more they reduce the uncertainty over where they truly belong in the hierarchy.
Magical had beaten Ghaiyyath on the square at Leopardstown before Tarnawa zoomed past her in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Was it in the mind of Ghaiyyath’s connections that a similar fate was likely on the cards for him?
We have shown before that Japanese horses as a group are far from over-represented in the world’s Top 100 by TRC Global Rankings.
Going into the Japan Cup, we had Contrail at #1 because our machine-learning system could not find a horse who had beaten so many talented horses without losing to one of them. But we pointed out that the Japan Cup was a very difficult spot for him after a draining win in the G1 Japanese St Leger at 15f. And he ran an absolute screamer in second, surrounded by mares in 1-3-4 who were receiving fully 5lb. He is now world-ranked 5.
There is plenty more to come from him, and word is that his connections are determined to show it to the world in 2021.
But 2020 belongs to Almond Eye. She is now bound for the paddocks, but her name will always be invoked when great Japanese horses are discussed – and rightly so.
What a horse she has been. Her cruising speed, temperament, adaptability to different distances, turn of foot and will to win are all exemplary. She retires as the highest-earning Japanese horse of all time.
Sayonara, TRC world champion.