THE lingering impression throughout the season was that the classic generation were a quality bunch and this is reflected in the rankings with centre-stage going to Adayar and St Mark’s Basilica on 127.

The latter is the top-rated Irish horse in this year’s world rankings by some 5lb and his position confirms the view that he is one of the best colts to have passed through Aidan O’Brien’s hands over the last 25 years. St Mark’s Basilica took a somewhat unusual path for a star Ballydoyle three-year-old in that his season began with victories in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and the Prix du Jockey Club.

A return to more familiar territory yielded his best performance of the season as he trounced Addeybb and Mishriff in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes before he signed off with a victory over Tarnawa in the Irish Champion Stakes.

A rating of 127 marks out Adayar as a quality winner of the Derby. After starting the season as just a Nottingham maiden winner, he ran creditably in defeat in two Derby trials before his dominant display at Epsom which was followed by a thoroughly likeable success in the King George at Ascot where he was too good for Mishriff.

The King George turned out to be the high point of his season as he had to settle for fourth in the Arc before failing to run his race in the Champion Stakes in mid-October.

Late starter

Adayar will get a chance to prove his worth again in 2022 and so too will the world’s highest rated three-year-old miler, Baaeed, who hadn’t even set foot on a racecourse by the time some of his contemporaries had proven their credentials at the highest level.

A Leicester maiden win in early June was the start of an undefeated six-race campaign which ended with Group 1 victories in the Prix du Moulin and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. It will be intriguing to see how far he can go over the coming months as there is the distinct possibility that he could be better again as a four-year-old.

A rating of 124 brings in a clutch of three-year-olds from different corners of the world and among them is Japan’s Efforia. He defeated Contrail (126) in a Group 1 in October and in late December he won the world’s biggest betting event, the Arima Kinen. He has only been beaten once in seven starts.

USA star

The hugely exciting American three-year-old Flightline also comes in at 124 after John Sadler’s charge ended his three-year-old campaign with a stunning 11-and-a-half-length victory in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on December 26th. He has won by double-digit margins on his three runs to date and this $1 million yearling is unquestionably one of the most exciting horses in the world.

The 124 mark also brings in the Breeders Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good, the ill-fated Kentucky Derby victor Medina Spirit and the Australian-based Nature Strip. The latter shares the title of the world’s top sprinter with Flightline after a year that yielded three top-level triumphs to go with a victory in the hugely valuable The Everest at Randwick in October.

Meanwhile, the world’s top-rated three-year-old stayer is Hurricane Lane who showed himself to be a well above average St Leger winner in finishing third in the Arc the following month.

Sadly the highest-rated three-year-old filly in the world, Snowfall, recently passed away which was such a pity as her succession of brilliant displays in the Oaks, Irish Irish and Yorkshire Oaks were among the abiding memories of 2021.

She was awarded a rating of 120 for her absolute dominance in the fillies’ middle-distance division, a rating that puts her 1lb ahead of the Coronation and Sussex Stakes heroine Alcohol Free.