Harbinger named world’s best in 2010
The Sir Michael Stoute-trained Harbinger has been given the highest rating of any thoroughbred racehorse in the world for 2010 following the publication of the World Thoroughbred Rankings, writes Elliot Slater.
The four-year-old put up a sensational performance to destroy a high-class field in last season’s renewal of the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July, beating Dante Stakes, Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes winner Cape Blanco by an astounding 13 lengths, with the Epsom Derby winner and subsequent Arc de Triomphe hero Workforce trailing further back down the field in fifth.
A visually stunning performance, Harbinger’s Ascot win has now been classified as one of the great runs of the modern era and a mark of 135 has been awarded the son of Dansili, only 1lb behind the 2009 superstar Sea the Stars, winner of a unique six successive Group 1 races in that one season. Harbinger is now assessed as one of the few horses to have come close to the rating of Dancing Brave, the highest rated horse since the classifications began in 1977, with a mark of 141.
Sadly that Ascot win was the last time Harbinger was seen on a racecourse and he has now been retired to stud after sustaining an injury, meaning those that bet on horse racing will never have a chance to back him again. His 135 rating is 6lbs ahead of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Blame (129), while Blame’s “victim” in that extraordinary race at Churchill Downs, Zenyatta, was awarded a mark of 125.
Workforce , who remains in training this year, was given a rating of 128, the same as 2000 Guineas winner Makfi, while Sussex Stakes, St James’s Palace and Irish 200 Guineas winner Canford Cliffs is rated 127, one pound ahead of Cape Blanco. One of the biggest surprises on the ratings was the mark of just 125 given to the mighty Goldikova, who won her third Breeders’ Cup Mile at the end of yet another stellar Group1-winning season.
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