Winx, Cracksman share Longines World's Best Racehorse award
LONDON – The world’s best racehorse of 2018 actually was two racehorses.
Winx and Cracksman were named co-winners of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse award at a ceremony at the Landmark Hotel in London on Tuesday. Both hit a mark of 130 as judged by an international panel of handicappers working under the auspices of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. Accelerate was the world’s third-ranked horse and leading dirt performer with a 128 rating.
The ratings, released monthly through the calendar year, are based on one performance, although established ratings help derive the single-race mark.
The IFHA handicappers made the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe the Longines World’s Best Race of 2018, though neither of the leading horses in the ratings participated. Enable, who wound up 2018 with a 125 rating, won the Arc by a narrow margin over the 3-year-old filly Sea of Class, with Cloth of Stars third and Waldgeist fourth.
The best race of the year is determined by the form of the top four finishers in international Grade 1 or Group 1 races. Cloth of Stars and Waldgeist combined for only one Group 1 win in 2018, though Sea of Class was a two-time Group 1 winner, albeit in age- and sex-restricted races, before just missing in the Arc.
As for Winx, she had a higher rating of 132 in 2016, when she was third in the Longines rankings behind Arrogate and California Chrome, and in 2017, when she was second behind Arrogate. With her 130 this year, Winx finally broke through. Sort of.
Cracksman had his rating jump to 130 from a top of 125 when he won the Group 1 QIPCO Champion Stakes by six lengths on Oct. 20 at Ascot in his career finale. Cracksman excelled on the soft ground that day but crushed the highly rated Crystal Ocean while jockey Frankie Dettori played to the crowd in the late stages.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s true that good horses go on any ground,” said Nigel Gray, co-chair of the IFHA handicappers panel, justifying the Champion Stakes’s high mark. “The way he performed there, with Mr. Dettori not doing a great deal other than causing wind resistance at the last, and still won by a long-looking six lengths over a horse that appears in the ratings at 125, was very strong.”
Cracksman is by Frankel and out of the Pivotal mare Rhadegunda, and he was campaigned by owner Anthony Oppenheimer and trainer John Gosden.
Winx shares the Longines World’s Best Racehorse award but has the stage to herself regarding international fame. The Australian superstar, a winner of 29 straight races, hit her mark of 130 on April 30, when she won the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick, beating Gailo Chop by 3 3/4 lengths. The IFHA panel rated her seven-length win about a month earlier in the Chipping Norton Stakes at 127, though the best horse she beat last year was Benbatl, winner of the Group 1 Dubai Turf but two lengths behind Winx in the Oct. 27 Cox Plate.
Winx has challenged the handicappers because her wins often come against horses lacking international form lines. The thumping of Benbatl, who also campaigned in Europe and won two other Group 1’s during 2018, went some way toward validating Winx’s performance level.
While Cracksman is off to the breeding shed, Winx, by Dubawi and out of Nahrain, by Selkirk, is poised to start a 2019 campaign Feb. 14 in the Apollo Stakes at Randwick.
“She’s not showing any signs of slowing down,” said Chris Waller, who trains Winx for owners Peter Tighe, Debbie Kepitis, and Richard Treweeke. “We’ll see where it takes us.”
