world’s best racehorse rankings
The best in the world
WBRR tables shine a light on genetics, Mitochondrial DNA, and the influence of deep female lines, writes Alan Porter Tables: pg78-82
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HE TRIO TIED for the top of the World’s Racehorse Rankings – Crystal Ocean, Enable and Waldgeist – pay a tribute to the remarkable matriarch Urban Sea, who threatens to become to the European Classic pedigree what Queen Victoria was to the crowned heads of Europe at the turn of the last century. Crystal Ocean is by Urban Sea’s son Sea The Stars, Enable, who emerges best if weight-for-sex is taken into account, is by Nathaniel, who is by Urban Sea’s son Galileo, while Waldgeist is by Galileo himself. Each of the trio in their own way are illustrative of some commercial and genetic talking points of current interest. One that was picked up immediately when the figures were announced was that Crystal Ocean would retire to stud at The Beeches, one of the NH wings of Coolmore. It’s long been hard for all but the most stellar middle-distances runners to gain much purchase at stud in Europe, but Crystal Ocean might represent a new extreme. It’s quite remarkable that one of the year’s leading horses, who gained his most prestigious Group 1 victory over 1m2f, who is by one of Europe’s top stallions, and is a half-brother to two other group/graded winners, one Grade 1, and who is out of a two-year-old stakes winner, isn’t even considered to have a shot as a mainstream Flat sire! On the other hand every year seems to see a new, almost generic, seemingly interchangable new intake of Green Desert/ Danehill/Acclamation line two-year-old sprinters covering large initial books
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before gradually fading away, many never to be heard from again as far as high-level performers are concerned. In passing we have to wonder what kind of opportunities the magnificent Stradivarius – like Crystal Ocean, by Sea The Stars – who topped the extended division again this year, will have to do to make the grade as a Flat sire when he retires. Last year we noted Enable made some pedigree history as the first Group or Grade 1 winner to be inbred 3x2 or closer to the epoch dominating Sadler’s Wells (although she is not the most closely inbred Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, that title is still held by Coronation V, a dominant heroine of the 1949 running, who was by a son of Tourbillon out of a mare by Tourbillon). What’s particularly interesting is that the re-affirmation of the closely inbred Enable’s standing as a world-leader came just before publication of a study that raised concerns about the degree of inbreeding in the modern thoroughbred. Published in mid-January this year, a paper by a team at University College Dublin, led by UCD Professor in Equine Genomics, Emmeline Hill, through DNA analysis of 10,000 thoroughbreds demonstrated that inbreeding across the breed has steadily increased across over the last 45 years. The concern expressed in the article is that a phenomenon known as “inbreeding depression” can compromise both fertility and health. The conclusion of the article is that inbreeding has been driven by commercial
Two of the best horses in the world in 2019: Crystal Ocean (far side) and Enable battle out the finish to last July’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes
