Flightline: The highest-rated American-trained horse in Timeform's history

*This article was first published on September 5, 2022

Baaeed’s performance when winning the Juddmonte International at York last month by six and a half lengths was an outstanding effort.

But if there was one horse in the world with the potential to better it, it was the American four-year-old Flightline, he too unbeaten, and on Saturday he did just that with a stunning display in the Pacific Classic.

Having just his fifth start, and stepping up to a mile and a quarter for the first time at Del Mar, Flightline was allowed to stride on by his jockey Flavien Prat from the half-mile pole, had taken an ‘embarrassing lead’, in the words of race caller Trevor Denman, by the home turn and was just shaken up in the straight to pull even further clear before coasting across the line, winning by an official margin of 19¼ lengths in the fastest official time for the race since Candy Ride won in 2003.

Flightline might have made the opposition look second-rate but they were anything but. Runner-up Country Grammer had run to 126 when winning the Dubai World Cup in March and more recently had finished second conceding weight to the 122-rated Royal Ship in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar last time. Royal Ship was beaten a further seven lengths into third this time.

Flightline’s rating now stands at 143, an outstanding figure which only a handful of horses in Europe have ever bettered in Timeform’s experience, namely Frankel (147), Sea-Bird (145), Brigadier Gerard and Tudor Minstrel (144), all of those, of course, on turf.

Timeform has been publishing ratings for the best horses in North America for almost thirty years now, the first lists appearing in Racehorses of 1993, and Flightline is the first in that part of the world since then to earn a rating of over 140.

The 138-rated Cigar long set the standard for American dirt horses in that period. Ironically, the 1996 Pacific Classic was the race in which he was finally beaten at odds of 1/10 by 40/1 shot Dare And Go after sixteen consecutive victories that included the previous season’s Breeders’ Cup Classic and the very first running of the Dubai World Cup.

Cigar’s essay in Racehorses of 1996 identified him as ‘the best horse to race in the States since Spectacular Bid.’ Foaled in 1979, Spectacular Bid was champion at two, three and four and won 26 of his 30 races, including the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.

The Pacific Classic featured among four Grade 1 wins in 1997 for the ex-Argentinian five-year-old Gentlemen who was rated 136, while 2004 Horse of The Year Ghostzapper ran to 137 when winning that season’s Breeders’ Cup Classic – like Flightline, he was gradually stretched out in trip having won his first Grade 1 over six and a half furlongs.

Ghostzapper won nine of his eleven races, his final win coming in the 2005 Metropolitan Handicap which he won by just over six lengths – Flightline won the latest edition of that race in June by a similar margin.

Cigar’s rating was finally matched in 2015 by three-year-old American Pharoah, he too beaten only twice in eleven starts. He became the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to complete the US Triple Crown and then added the Breeders’ Cup Classic to compile a unique record, running a career-best on that final start at Keeneland when winning by six and a half lengths.

It was only a year later that two more outstanding horses fought out the Breeders’ Cup Classic. California Chrome had failed in his own Triple Crown bid in 2014 after winning the first two legs but it was as a five-year-old that he proved better than ever (earning a rating of 138) when his wins included the Dubai World Cup and the Pacific Classic, making all to win the latter contest by five lengths from the high-class mare Beholder who had won the race year before.

However, California Chrome met his match in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Classic when going down by half a length to the three-year-old Arrogate (139) after a memorable battle which took them over ten lengths clear of the third. That came after another of Arrogate’s very best performances when he won the Travers Stakes at Saratoga against fellow three-year-olds on just his fifth start by 13½ lengths.

Arrogate’s career ended in three defeats, but his winning run of seven races included top-class performances at four to win the inaugural Pegasus World Cup and then the Dubai World Cup.