American Pharoah best rated horse in US history

AMERICAN Pharoah (pictured) is highest rated US horse in Racing Post history

Think of the world-title race like a pair of old-fashioned scales. Last week American Pharoah and Golden Horn were poised in a delicate balance with peak RPRs of 131 and 132. But on Saturday the American chucked on a couple of kilo weights, tipped the scales and pushed the title beyond doubt.

It could have gone either way. It all came down to two minutes in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. World leader Golden Horn had just run his final race, finishing second in the Breeders' Cup Turf, and world number two American Pharoah was up next. America expected.

In the end the Bob Baffert-trained threeyear-old blew away his rivals, and Golden Horn, with a performance that will shine through the ages.

He became the first ever winner of the US grand slam and did it in scintillating style. Over the years we had come to believe US horses were no longer capable of winning the Triple Crown, but then American Pharoah came along and won the three Classics by an average of 4.5 lengths.

We had also started to think US threeyear-olds who contested all three Classics would often burn out shortly afterwards.

Then American Pharoah came along and stepped it up again on his next start, looking even more monstrous when winning the Haskell Invitational in August.

This was a horse beating the best of his generation by huge margins and on Saturday he aimed to become the first ever winner of the US grand slam by adding the Breeders' Cup Classic to his triple crown. And what happened? He stepped it up again. He achieved a career best RPR of 138 on the weekend. That puts him 6lb clear on the world standings and ranks him as the best US horse in RPR history (since 1988), above past champions like Ghostzapper (135) and Cigar (135).

It should also be noted that the two horses with higher RPRs, Frankel (143) and Dubai Millennium (139), both achieved their figures after reaching maturity as four-year-olds.

American Pharoah might have gone on to rate even higher as a mature horse next year, but the economics of Flat racing rarely allows such great horses to stay in training at four, as there are tens of millions of dollars a year waiting for them at stud. So he leaves for his second career with an RPR of 138. He had one race against older horses and luckily he took that opportunity and served up one of the best performances this side of the millennium.

- RACINGPOST.COM

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