WORLD RANKINGS ARE STUPID.

​Tennis ranks its players on a points system based on tournaments throughout the year, with more points awarded for the majors than lesser events. It is an equitable and straight-forward way of assessing players ability, with no judgement calls required. No one can argue if Roger Federer is ranked number one if he has won the most titles and accrued the most points.
Ranking racehorses on a worldwide basis is a far more arbitrary affair, with judgement calls required throughout the process, added to which many differing factors must be overlooked as to ponder over them would take for every and a day and the quivering public would never gain the benefit of knowing if Cracksman or Winx is the best in racehorse on planet Earth, as Matt Chapman would pronounce.
I have no idea which horse might be considered the best of the best or by which criteria to base my judgement. Winx is on a winning streak that has the hallmarks of the days of Eclipse when long sequences of 1’s were not uncommon. They are now, though and given the majority of the great mare’s wins have come in Group 1’s it is hard to shake off the idea that she might just be invincible. After all, didn’t Frankel have one or three strolls in the park during his winning streak?
I am as certain as horse racing will allow that Cracksman could only ever beat Enable, Roaring Lion or Winx on soft ground, and only then if he was of a mind to put his best foot forward. By being ground dependent, which by the end of his career was undoubtedly the case, the distance by which he won the Champion Stakes, to my mind, is irrelevant. I was so impressed by the manner of his victory in the previous season’s Champion that I predicted he would prove superior to Enable this season. I no longer think that. I also predicted that Cracksman and Enable would never race against one another. I was right, sadly, if for the wrong reason.
On good ground, over 1m-2 furlongs, I would actually put Roaring Lion in front of Cracksman, especially as he would receive a weight-for-age allowance.
The major problem when it comes to assessing horses that race on different continents, on turf and artificial surfaces, in contrasting weather conditions and when soft in one country might mean something different in another country, is that there are just too many prestige races at this time of the year. The big operations can divvy the big races up between their leading owners. Already we have had Roaring Lion winning the Queen Elisabeth, Cracksman the Champion, Enable the Arc and Winx the Cox Plate, and that is without the mega-bucks jamboree that is the Breeders Cup. What hope is there for a prestige race that can have any bearing on informing us which of the present-day champions is the best if it is so damn easy and profitable to keep them apart?
When was the last time two truly meritorious racehorses met on the racecourse, where defeat for one and victory for the other was the defining moment of the sport at that moment in time? Wouldn’t it be truly wonderful if Enable and Winx were to be kept in training so that these two great mares could race one another. Of course, to be fair to both parties both should travel, either to have one race in Australia and another in Britain, or to a neutral country like America.
I don’t know if Australia, as it is here at home, has a need to put more bums on seats, to spread the word about how magnificent our sport can be. But I cannot think of any better marketing spectacle than to have Winx and Enable eyeball each other at Royal Ascot and then for the re-run Down Under. The publicity such a spectacle would engender would knock for six the Kauto v Denman clash in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Australia’s greatest ever racehorse versus one of Britain’s greatest mares. If that didn’t put flat racing on the front pages of the broadsheet newspapers then all hope is gone?
And to end by returning to the nonsense that is world rankings. Who is to say that a middle-distance horse is worthier of the accolade ‘best in the world’ rather than a sprinter or stayer?