THE unveiling of the Longines-backed World’s Best Racehorse Rankings this week was necessarily lower-key than usual but reminded us of hopefully sunnier times ahead.

I could not find a lot to quibble with in the assessments, though the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp winner Persian King looks too high on 125 (120 with me), and Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winner Gamine looks too low on 122 (126 with me), both due to the committee apparently ignoring time analysis in their deliberations.

I also reckon that Australian ratings are too high by about 2lb, something which was exposed at times by British and Irish raiders down under in 2020.

The Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Knicks Go may have been undersold slightly on 119 with the WBRRs (122 with me), but that former figure looks to be about what he ran to in winning the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational comfortably at Gulfstream last Saturday.

Golden Sixty was the highest-rated horse trained in Hong Kong in 2020 on 124 (with both me and WBRR) but got home in front by just a head – running to about 117 – in the Group 1 Stewards’ Cup at Sha Tin last Sunday. Sectional analysis suggests he did pretty well, having been held up in a race with a last-two-furlong finishing speed of 107%.

Hot King Prawn (I just rate them, not name them!) impressed with a 121-rated winning effort in the Group 1 Centenary Sprint Cup at the same venue.

Eight-year-old Lord Glitters missed out narrowly on the WBRRs (which include horses rated 115 or more) but showed there is plenty of life in the old boy yet with a Group 2 Singspiel Stakes win at Meydan last week, backed up by a good time and worth 116 in my book.