Juddmonte Farms’ Arrogate was awarded the 2017 Longines World’s Best Racehorse title for the second year in a row at an awards ceremony in London on Tuesday.
Determined by a panel of international handicappers, the World’s Best Racehorse title is based on the single highest-rated performance of the year rather than a horse’s cumulative record for the season. Arrogate topped the World’s Best Racehorse Rankings with a 134 rating for his Dubai World Cup (G1) victory last March.
The Bob Baffert trainee also earned the award off a 134 rating for his victory in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) at Santa Anita. In 2015, the Baffert-trained American Pharoah won the honor off a 134 rating in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland.
Arrogate is the second two-time winner of this honor. The undefeated Frankel won the award in 2011 and 2012 with ratings of 136 and 140, respectively.
Winx, the Australian-based mare who has won 22 races in a row, was the second highest-rated horse of 2017 and the highest rated turf horse in the world. Her final rating was 132.
Champion (G1) winner Cracksman and 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Gun Runner both earned ratings of 130. Enable, the three-year-old filly who went undefeated in 2017 with victories in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1), King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (G1), and Epsom Oaks (G1), earned a final rating of 128.
Arrogate captured the $12 million Pegasus World Cup (G1) at Gulfstream Park prior to the Dubai World Cup, but went unplaced in two of his final three starts of the season.
Voted the champion three-year-old male of 2016, Arrogate retired in November with record earnings of $17,422,600. He stands at Juddmonte Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.
