Chapter 9

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Inaugural World Rankings

Rewind to November 2005

Makybe Diva was ranked as the 10th best thoroughbred in the world in November 2005.

In 2005, the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities published their inaugural world rankings. The International Federation was officially formed in 1983 to protect the integrity of the sport and its breeding. The Federation’s roots went back to 1961 when the major international players met for the first time and now in 2005 they had developed a system to rank their best International performers. It’s shades of golf and its world rankings versus the PGA of America earnings, which used to be Golf’s primary standard for performance.

Like the sport of golf, thoroughbred racing owes a lot of its International success to the American development of the sport (despite having its roots in Europe) but also like golf, thoroughbred racing has become a “truly” International sport and the IFHA have done a great job in compiling statistics to rank the best thoroughbreds of 2005.

Here are the top thirty performers as of November 2, 2005. Twenty-nine of the thirty are direct descendants of our Dancer. The only horse who is not a direct descendant is Silent Witness, tied for thirteenth in the rankings. Ironically, Silent Witness is the only gelding in the top thirty and therefore the only horse on the list who will not be extending his or her breeding line. Silent Witness does have a strong connection to our Dancer through his sire El Moxie who is out of the Dancer’s half sister, Raise The Standard out of the Dancer’s dam Natalma.

The list represents breeding from seven different countries and the winners of every major International race in the federation’s 55 different countries. In addition to having that one common thread of our Dancer’s bloodline, the twenty-nine horses on the list share in their ability to excel at the highest level of their sport. The top 16 on the list, down to Silent Witness have a combined record of (213-112-38-21) and lifetime earnings to this point of almost $33,000,000. That is a winning percentage over 50% and top 3 finishes of over 80% against the best thoroughbreds in the world.

The ratio of direct male descendants to descendants through female lines is fairly evenly split with 55% of the descendants, direct males. Six of the twenty-nine are through the Danzig line with five of those six, direct males. Sadlers Wells, Nureyev and Lyphard have four descendants each. There are many on the list with multiple genetic links to the Dancer, I only included the first link in each case. Danehill is the most successful grandson on the list with four descendants in the top 30 but Montjeu has 2 in the top 5.

(these charts were not the greatest in my book either - click to enlarge and you should get the idea - when I update with this years rankings I will improve the charts)





Quick Link back to Chapter 8 for original book flow - hit home to return to here
http://northerndancerblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-8.html