THERE were a lot more headlines written containing the name City Of Troy than Laurel River in 2024 but the two horses, in renowned colours of Coolmore and Juddmonte, shared the honours as the best of the 2024 racehorse crop.

The Dubai World Cup winner, now a seven-year-old and still in training, was rated 128 - the same mark as Derby hero City Of Troy. They were joint-winners of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse award at Tuesday’s ceremony.

It is the first time the prestigious award has been shared since it was split between Crystal Ocean, Enable and Waldgeist in 2019.

It might be no surprise that the winner of the Group 1 Dubai World Cup was the top-rated dirt horse in the world but Laurel River was not even in the top three in the betting for the race before a stunning eight-and-a-half-length success in March.

Juddmonte’s US-bred son of Into Mischief also landed a Grade 3 in Meydan before his big win. He had been a Grade 2 winner for Bob Baffert in the US in 2022 but was sidelined for a year and a half before moving to Bhupat Seemar in Dubai where Tadhg O’Shea partnered him to his two wins last spring.

US horses

With a lack of stars among the older horses in the US, it was the three-year-olds who held sway in the overall dirt ratings and, after a few years of generally poor winners, it was the Kentucky Derby form which held up all through the season.

Only centimetres (two noses) separated Mystik Dan, Sierra Leone and Forever Young at Churchill Downs, and though the winner was then beaten in the Preakness and absent until late December, he was still awarded a mark of 120 for that win. Sierra Leone and the beaten Derby favourite Fierceness later surpassed him, both given a rating of 125. They share that figure with two of the top older horses in a truly international grid. Japan’s champion Do Deuce and Hong Kong’s world traveller Romantic Warrior are also on 125.

The top US three-year-old dirt horses were well matched and held their form well.

Sierra Leone finally got his big win in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, beating Grade 1 Travers winner Fierceness by a length and a half with Forever Young a further length and a quarter behind in third.

Forever Young then returned home to Japan to win the Group 1 Tokyo Daishoten on dirt at the very end of the season.

The likely US Horse of the Year, Thorpedo Anna is rated 120, the same as the Kentucky Derby winner. Her five dominant wins against her female division were boosted by her gallant head defeat by Fierceness in the Travers Stakes.

The top older horse campaigned in Britain was Goliath (126) for his dominant King George win. The ultra consistent miler Charyn, who raced eight times, winning three Group 1s from March to November, was rated 124.

The five-year-old mare Via Sistina (127) more than justified her purchase price of 2.7 million guineas when she dominated down under. Leaving Britain with a second place to King Of Steel in the 2023 Champions Stakes, she won five Group 1s in Australia include an eight-length success in the Group 1 Cox Plate for Chris Waller.

Rebel’s Romance, who won his second Breeders’ Cup Turf at the age of six, is given a 123 rating. Kyprios is the top stayer, rated 122, along with the Arc winner Bluestocking and Tattersalls Gold Cup winner White Birch whom we never saw race after that impressive success where he beat Auguste Rodin by three lengths, both those older horses rated on 122 here.US sprinter Cogburn, Hong Kong star Ka Ying Rising and Australian I Wish I Win are the top rated in the sprint category on 121, with Bradsell on 118.