QUITE remarkably, the accolade of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse in 2016 belongs to a horse that hadn’t even run at stakes level before August but in the space of just two runs the brilliant Arrogate did enough to head the global classifications.

Arrogate tops the standings with a rating of 134 which equals the mark achieved by American Pharoah, who was the world’s top rated runner 2015.

The contrast between two horses’ careers could not be more striking but Arrogate’s two Grade 1 successes make him the standout colt worldwide and only one American horse (Cigar, 135) has achieved a higher mark in the last 20 years.

Whereas American Pharoah had claimed the Triple Crown by early June, Arrogate had only just won his first race. The Unbridled’s Song colt added two more relatively low key wins to his name before he announced himself on the world stage in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August. It was Arrogate’s first start at stakes level and he dominated with a pillar to post tour de force that saw him win by over 13 lengths and break a 37-year-old track record.

For his next start the Bob Baffert inmate contested the Breeders Cup Classic and his gripping last gasp defeat of California Chrome was adjudged the best performance in the world in 2016. Furthermore, the Breeders Cup Classic is deemed to have been the best race run in the world last year.

On this side of the Atlantic there was another standout three-year-old champion in action in Almanzor who heads the European three-year-old standings on 129. His overwhelming and justifiable superiority in the classic division is such that the Wootton Bassett colt ended the year rated some 7lb clear of his contemporaries.

Almanzor first shot to prominence with a victory in the Prix du Jockey Club before taking his form to a new level when pitched in against the very best that Ireland and England had to offer. In September he produced the best performance seen on an Irish racecourse since 2009 as he defeated an all star cast, headed by Found (124), in the Irish Champion Stakes (the joint second-highest rated race in the world in 2016).

The following month Almanzor lined up at Ascot in the QIPCO British Champion Stakes and the result was an even more decisive one as he handed out a two-length beating to Found.

A rating of 122 brings in a clutch of elite three-year-olds from 2016 and these include the brilliant Minding. The first filly to complete the Guineas/Oaks double in 14 years, she won five Group 1 contests and is a three-year-old filly of truly rare quality. Her rating puts her alongside Peeping Fawn (2007) as the best three-year-old filly trained by Aidan O’Brien.

The joint champion three-year-old miler in Europe - her best effort of the season came when she beat the colts in Ascot’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes - Minding is also crowned champion in the intermediate and long distance filly divisions. Furthermore, she joins a very select group in becoming a European champion filly at both two and three.

The miling division is responsible for a number of the season’s best three-year-olds and The Gurkha also comes in at 122. His brief career took in wins in the Sussex Stakes and the Poule d’Esssai des Poulains. His mark is the same as Ribchester who followed his narrow defeat in the Sussex with victory in the Prix Jacques Le Marois and a second to Minding at Ascot. Both colts have been assigned an identical mark to the 2015 dual Guineas hero Gleneagles.

Galileo Gold, who won the 2000 Guineas and beat The Gurkha in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, comes in at 121 and this is the same rating achieved by the dual Derby winner Harzand.

The latter’s mark falls some way below the 130 achieved by the 2015 Derby winner Golden Horn but he is still the worthy European champion three-year-old in the long distance category.

Elsewhere one has to look to the far east to find the world’s top three-year-old stayer. Satono Diamond (121) heads this discipline with his two Group 1 victories including the Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger).

Also the overall champion stayer Satono Diamond’s mark is some way ahead of that of Harbour Law (114) who won a dramatic English St Leger in which the odds-on Idaho (119) came down when going well around three furlongs from home.

Even though he was overshadowed through the second half of the season the Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist still ended 2016 as the third highest three-year-old on global classifications at 123.