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It’s official, there was no better sprinter in the world in 2024 than Hong Kong’s latest sensation Ka Ying Rising, but according to the World’s Best Racehorse Rankings (WBRR), there were two just as good.

Ka Ying Rising’s G1 Hong Kong Sprint victory earned him a rating of 121, placing him equal 24th overall: the two sprinters deemed to have posted a performance as good as his were the speedy American runner Cogburn, sharp for three wins in the year but a blow-out fifth in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint last start; and the Australian I Wish I Win, whose sole success that year came in the G1 Kingsford Smith at Eagle Farm.   

Ka Ying Rising’s recognition at the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA)’s World Racing Awards, held in London, came a year after Hong Kong’s Lucky Sweynesse topped the world’s sprint rankings with a rating of 125.

Ka Ying Rising wins the G1 Centenary Sprint Cup
KA YING RISING, ZAC PURTON / G1 Centenary Sprint Cup // Sha Tin /// 2025 //// Photo by Alex Evers

As for Ka Ying Rising’s near-neighbour Romantic Warrior, the same panel of international handicappers rated the brilliant Hong Kong champion fifth-equal overall in a longlist of about 260 horses rated 115 and up.

Romantic Warrior’s campaign of domination through 2024, unbeaten in five races including offshore in the G1 Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo, did not produce a performance the IFHA handicappers deemed good enough to lift him above a rating of 125. That came in the year-end G1 Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin.

The Danny Shum-trained seven-year-old was rated equal to Juddmonte International Stakes runner-up Calandagan, G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic one-two Sierra Leone and Fierceness, and Japan’s Horse of the Year, the G1 Tenno Sho Autumn and G1 Japan Cup winner Do Deuce.

City Of Troy and Laurel River topped the ‘World’s Best’ list for 2024, each with a rating of 128. That gave the award of World’s Best Racehorse a diplomatic feel, with Juddmonte’s Dubai-based American-bred dirt runner and Coolmore’s Irish-trained European champion turf galloper sharing the highest rank in a year that lacked a megastar of the 2023 champion Equinox’s ilk: this year’s top pair rated seven pounds inferior to the past world champion’s mark of 135.

That mark of 128 matches the previous lowest top rating, which came in 2019 when Enable, Waldgeist and Crystal Ocean shared the ‘World’s Best’ title in a dissatisfying outcome.

Laurel River’s peak rating was given for his visually impressive win in the third of his three races that year, the March 2024 G1 Dubai World Cup, a race that has not produced many subsequent winners; City Of Troy’s peak was achieved in a talent-loaded G1 Juddmonte International Stakes at York, and helped lift that storied race to again be named the best of the World’s Top 100 Group 1 Races.

Laurel River romped home in the Dubai World Cup
LAUREL RIVER, TADHG O’SHEA / G1 Dubai World Cup // Meydan /// 2024 //// Photo supplied by Dubai Racing Club

Via Sistina took third place in the racehorse rankings for Australia, given a rating of 127, while Goliath, a fair sixth in the Japan Cup, earned a 126 rating and fourth position in the rankings thanks to his victory over the subsequent G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Blue Stocking, who in turn was equal 16th with a 122 rating.

Hong Kong punched above its weight, as is often the case, with 12 horses in the list, while eight of its 11 Group 1 races made it into the World’s Top 100.

Completing the top four Group 1 races were the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. Ranked equal fifth were the Japan Cup at Tokyo, the Breeders’ Cup Classic from Del Mar, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp.

Hong Kong’s top-rated race, the Hong Kong Cup, ranked equal 26th ∎

David Morgan is Chief Journalist at Idol Horse. As a sports mad young lad in County Durham, England, horse racing hooked him at age 10. He has a keen knowledge of Hong Kong and Japanese racing after nine years as senior racing writer and racing editor at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. David has also worked in Dubai and spent several years at the Racenews agency in London. His credits include among others Racing Post, ANZ Bloodstock News, International Thoroughbred, TDN, and Asian Racing Report.

View all articles by David Morgan.

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