Talk:List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses

Introduction-Source Needed
" male horses are considered more aggressive racers and generally have a significant competitive advantage." This is the opinion of some trainers and owners who do not understand horse dynamics, which are far different than a human one. I also recognize that there are separate filly and mare races. However, given that horse herds are matriarchal (i.e. the mares are the leaders of the herd) in nature, there needs to be a factual source that backs up the claim that colts and geldings have a competitive advantage because of their gender. Thus far, in 15 years of being in the business of raising thoroughbreds, I have not seen one. Gcal1971 (talk) 19:29, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Undefeated
Pharis was unbeaten in his 3 starts, but uncertain as to whether to include?Cgoodwin (talk) 07:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

This page doesn't sort properly.--Robwjdawson (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Name change?
Perhaps this listing could be named Lists of notable Thoroughbred racehorses or something similar? It was expanded beyond the unbeaten list and there isn't any similar list in WP or elswhere to my knowledge.Cgoodwin (talk) 06:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Why was this moved without consensus? This article is about racehorses and not records and also has many links that will be disrupted by this change.Cgoodwin (talk) 20:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Breeding Impact
I would suggest an additional section in this article about the breeding impact of certain notable horses. Many (most?) modern race horse winners trace back to just 3 bloodlines (Mr. Prospector, Nasrullah, and Northern Dancer). And 2 of them trace to Native Dancer. In 2008, all 20 entries in the Kentucky Derby were Native Dancer descendants. And the winner for the last 15 years or so has been a Native Dancer descendant. T-bonham (talk) 10:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I have added a little on the sirelines. Please feel free to add if you wish.05:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Morris": From Spearmint (horse): Morris, Simon; Tesio Power 2000 - Stallions of the World, Syntax Software From Thoroughbred: Morris Thoroughbred Stallions pp. 1–2 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The reference: Morris, Simon; Tesio Power 2000 - Stallions of the World, Syntax Software is a ref that I have used, but I don't know anything about the latter ref, and it appears to be taken from a book.Cgoodwin (talk) 05:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I added relevant facts and info on Ruffian's 10 wins in succession. Lady's Secret's 10 Grade 1 wins in her career, and Easy Goer and Alysheba. All facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.74.124 (talk) 07:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Horses that are correctly referenced and placed in existing groups will not be deleted. Please do not add horses with less than 10 wins (unless they are undefeated and linked) as there are far too many horses to be included and the lists will become too long.Cgoodwin (talk) 10:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh so you Incorrectly deleted Ruffian's 10 successive wins, and Lady's Secret's 10 Grade 1 wins?? And who said that Nine Grade 1 wins, or Nine of anything will make a list be too long? There is a LONG List of Horses who won 3 or 4 races in the article. In fact, I so far have only found TWO(Easy Goer, Alysheba) Other Horses who have won 9 Grade 1 races in their career. I would think that would be significant, especially in the category of amount of Grade 1 wins by a horse? Thoughts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.74.124 (talk) 10:32, 7 January 2011 (UTC) Just a follow up, I did some research, and found that Bayakoa had 13 Grade 1 wins, Paseana had 10 Grade 1 wins,and as previously noted Lady's Secret had 11 Grade 1 wins. And just as importantly, in all of the decades(1970's,1980's,1990's,2000's) since the start(1973) of the grading system, ONLY THREE(3) horses have won Nine(9)Grade 1 races,and they are Easy Goer,Alysheba and Sky Beauty. I feel that since these are the only three to have Nine Grade 1 wins, I believe it is very relevant to the article. In fact, in my opinion, these three horses are more relevant than the loads of horses who won 3 or 4 races and were unbeaten in those few races. Thoughts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.74.124 (talk) 13:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Group/Grade races
Please sign your comments with 4 tildes. Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Dubai, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay plus some other countries, have graded/group races and I can assure that these countries also have many multiple winners of these races, too. Cgoodwin (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

So based upon the fact that there might be some from foreign countries, the only three American horses to have won nine Grade 1 races aren't significant and relevant to the article on a list of leading thoroughbreds? Is that your answer? I'm assuming so. 76.15.74.124 (talk) 05:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Counting Grade I/Group one wins maybe of some interest, but it's next to useless as a way of comparing relative merit. For one thing it only applies to the last 40 years, and for another, standards vary wildly. For instance, the Prix Niel, which is a European Group Two race, generally takes more winning than the Kentucky Derby. Check the lists of winners if you don't believe me. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 23:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Striking part of the above as it comes over as unnecessary euro-arrogance on my part. The main point is still valid though- we are comparing apples and oranges. The article already makes a none-too-clear distinction between "international" and "local" G1s. Another distinction is that in North America and Australia there are G1 Handicaps while in Europe and Japan there are no such things. There are no globally recognised criteria. I would be in favour of deleting the section. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 00:58, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not favour deleting the Grade I/Group one wins section as it still has a lot of merit at national levels, even though it may fall short in comparing international horses. Cgoodwin (talk) 01:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly not going to delete it. Maybe we could- one day- have separate lists for N America, Europe, Australasia, although the page is getting out of hand as it is. Here's the European top 11 G1 winners since the start of the system (my maths).


 * 11 Goldikova
 * 9 Triptych
 * 8 Sikeston, Mondrian, Allez France, Miesque
 * 7 Hector Protector, Irish River, Rock of Gibraltar, Acatenango, Yeats

Black Caviar is now up to 9 Group 1 wins, and must be in consideration too — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.41.165 (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Undefeated- Wait!
Could we agree not to put horses on the undefeated list until they retire. After all EVERY racehorse starts out undefeated. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 15:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The active horses that do not already have an article about them could be deleted, but the likes of Black Caviar who was rated the top Thoroughbred racehorse in the world (with a 135 rating) for the first quarter of 2011 by Timeform, becoming the highest rated sprinter and mare in 2011 must stay. She truly is a star. Cgoodwin (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Most Group 1 wins - Wenona Girl?
I have deleted Wenona Girl form this list in the past but someone has put her back there. She raced before Group/Grade 1 racing came into existence, and if we put her on the list we also have to put in many others who won major races before the 70s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sg2910 (talk • contribs) 05:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've taken her out again. Definite anachronism.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 17:39, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

PR Thoroughbreds
I have tagged a lot of the information on Puerto Rican horses with "citation needed". There needs to be a source for these remarkable records, or they need to be removed.  Tigerboy1966  15:44, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Removed the above. Tagged similar material in the "Most Wins in a Season" section.  Tigerboy1966  18:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Last warning: provide citations or they go.  Tigerboy1966  15:30, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Gone: slapped another bunch of citation needed notices on the unbeaten sequences section. You know the drill by now.  Tigerboy1966  21:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Removed. I wouldn't want to be guilty of cultural bias, so I've tagged another tranche of mainly Aus/NZ horses that didn't have either a ref or their own articles.  Tigerboy1966  07:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Successive Stakes wins
This really needs to be clearly defined or removed. What exactly is meant by a "stakes race".  Tigerboy1966  15:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I was wondering that too, but I've updated Frankel's record to include the Champion Stakes. JH (talk page) 18:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Most wins in one season
Added loads of citation needed tags, mainly to Aus/NZ horses. It all seems to be good faith stuff, there is at least one Melbourne Cup winner among them, but they do need referencing.  Tigerboy1966  15:54, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Jorrocks did not win 30 races in any season. In 1946 he had just 8 starts. Detail of his record from NSW Sporting Magazine Vol.1 No. 1 Oct 1848 can be referenced at -

http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/society_art/races/sporting/magazine/turner.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.188.10.154 (talk) 17:09, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Titles are confusing
I believe some of the section titles are confusing.

For example "Undefeated Winners" is a tautology. By definition winners are undefeated. A less ambiguous title would be "Successive wins by Undefeated Horses" or similar.

You then have a title "Most Wins". Again, ambiguous, in my view. If you have a title "Undefeated Winners" then for conformity the title shoud be "Most wins though defeated" to clarify that although overall such horses have had more wins than those who remain undefeated, such wins were not in succession.

You then have a title "Successive Victories". Black Caviar does not appear in the list despite having 25 successive victories! This would place her 5th on the list. To clarify, the title should be "Successive wins, though defeated" or similar. Only then would Black Caviar be rightfully excluded. 203.9.151.254 (talk) 13:55, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

HELLO - ANYBODY THERE? 203.9.151.254 (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I already changed "Undefeated Winners" to "Undefeated horses". The "Successive Victories" is not an ideal heading, but the first sentence of the section explains things  Tigerboy1966   21:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Secretariat
Shouldn't Secretariat be on this list?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_(horse)

"He is considered to be one of the greatest Thoroughbreds of all time." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.47.197 (talk) 18:39, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * While there's no doubt that contemporary and subsequent opinion judges Secretariat near the top of the all-time greats, perhaps he doesn't fit any of the criteria for the various sections in this article - he wasn't undefeated for example. If you can come up with him fitting any of the criteria, add him to the relevant section. --Bcp67 (talk) 19:44, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

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Intro section
and anyone else who's interested, what do you think about softening the wording in the intro about it including "most" great horses to "many", and making a note that many other champions do not appear (especially I would think in North America because of the long-time popularity of handicap racing). Just feels weird to me to not have horses like Kelso showing up without some chitchat. And its a bit of a cheat IMO to show Danzig, who never entered a stakes race, and not any number of other horses.

Although I agree with the second paragraph, not sure why it's in this article. Is it to explain why we don't have a section on fastest horses as measured by the clock? In third paragraph, we bring up jump racing but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article. Maybe say something like "Jump horses have longer careers and some horses like X may amass a large number of major wins over the course of their careers." In fourth paragraph, we start by talking about triple crown but then jump to "Below are listed..." without any segue - at least in the US, there's only a small overlap between the two types of champions.

FYI, I also added some wording in the grade one section about the fact that the grading only came into play in the seventies. Does it look OK? Jlvsclrk (talk) 06:52, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Imagine the article did not have a lede and you or I had to write one: I don't think it would look much like it does now. It might be time to rip it up and start again (the lede, not the article). It really should be Lists of leading racehorses as there are lots of lists here and probably a few non-Tbs mentioned. The article is a bit of a rag-bag but it's very interesting and worth improving.  Tigerboy1966  07:42, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, I gave a first shot at rewriting the lede. As for the title, I think they're all Thoroughbreds - all the ones that have links are. Changing List to Lists seems weird to me and doesn't address the "leading" issue. "Thoroughbreds with notable win records"? Doesn't sound very catchy! Jlvsclrk (talk) 19:57, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The rewrite is a definite improvement. I suppose I was being a bit pedantic about the title (Sprinter Sacre is not a tb but Ill let that one go).  Tigerboy1966  07:01, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Successive G1 wins
How far down the number of wins do we go with this? We now have a couple of 5-win streaks added - is this notable enough to be included, or is it best to stick at 6 wins minumum? --Bcp67 (talk) 11:51, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I have a feeling five might open the floodgates, but there are some very good horses who fit there. If we keep, Cigar should be added. He was taken out of the 6 category because the Dubai World Cup wasn't graded in its first year, but he did have 5. Jlvsclrk (talk) 04:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking for horses to add to the list, I've realised how notable 5 G1 wins on the spin actually is - plenty of champions have failed to run up that streak, either by winning a lower graded race in between or being beaten. I'm happy now to have the bar set at 5! --Bcp67 (talk) 20:08, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I was noticing the exact same thing. I went through the US Horses of the Year and confirmed Rachel, Cigar and Spectacular Bid but that was it. There may conceivably be a few long streaks out there in the filly / mare ranks (slightly weaker competition), but no one's jumping to mind. Personal Ensign was darn close but there's a G2 smack in the middle. Oh wait, Go For Wand had five in a row. Cool, loved that girl. Oh, should I be putting the Equibase Profile in as a reference when adding? There's a lot of refs at the end, I suppose a few more wouldn't hurt! Jlvsclrk (talk) 21:35, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Minimum standard?
Should there be some sort of minimum standard for making the leading lists (esp for the undefeated and only one defeat)? Anything we come up with is arbitrary but there are a lot of horses out there with short undistinguished careers who nonetheless were say 3 or 4 out of 4. Are we trying to create an all inclusive list - because I don't know if that's possible especially the farther back you look. Maybe cut off the main lists at five or ten wins and extend the "other" section for truly notable winners? Just spitballing. Some of the recent additions are notable and definitely belong, others just aren't IMO. Jlvsclrk (talk) 20:38, 30 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I think this list is quite ridiculous and indeed, arbitrary. There's a part of my that would almost split it or delete it.    Montanabw (talk) 07:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Ive already given my general thoughts on the article. There are specific problems with the unbeaten and beaten once lists. Horses with 4 wins or less really should be notable for something other than their win/loss record to be included. Let's face it neither list is ever going to be complete: there must be hundreds of horses who broke down after a good start. So I think we can be bold in removing non-notables. Ask yourself "is this horse ever likely to get an article?" Drone = yes, Conquest Vivi = no.  Tigerboy1966  08:10, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

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$10 million prizewinning horses
Tom (USA) Rolfe (talk) 06:12, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * After Equinox won the Japan Cup on 26 Nov 2023 the career earnings leaders in  selected currencies are as follows (using Reserve Bank of Australia forex  rates for the race date or the closest trading day prior to the race date if  that was a non trading day (see rba.gov.au historical rates)):
 * Winx is the leader in US dollars and Hong Kong dollars.  Golden Sixty (2nd in US dollars) is the leader in British pounds.   T M Opera O (10th in US dollars) is the leader in euros and Aussie dollars. Equinox (13th in US dollars) is  leader in Japanese yen. Such are the  vagaries of the foreign exchange market.   Orfevre, Gentildonna and Almond Eye (2nd, 4th and 5th respectively in US dollars) are included for comparison purposes
 * Golden Sixty and Equinox are due to race in December 2023 so the order could change.
 * 1 Winx (AUS) 2011 (mare) USD 19,753,694 GBP 14,697,269 EUR 17,399,539 AUD 26,451,175 JPY 2,201,799,600
 * HKD 154,045,777
 * 2 Orfevre (JPN) 2008 USD 18,988,823 GBP 11,880,602 EUR 14,088,082 AUD 18,869,240 JPY 1,599,879,264 HKD 147,537,935
 * 3 Golden Sixty (AUS) 2015 (last start 30 Apr 2023) USD 18,982,632 GBP 14,730,826 EUR 16,838,600 AUD 26,977,328
 * JPY 2,010,826,916 HKD 147,930,600
 * 4 Gentildonna (JPN) 2009 (mare) USD 18,481,223 GBP 11,569,967 EUR 14,158,606 AUD 19,256,471 JPY 1,726,819,728
 * HKD 143,365,858
 * 5. Almond Eye (JPN) 2015 (mare) USD 17,616,299 GBP 13,454,567 EUR 15,300,862 AUD 24,566,550 JPY 1,918,270,493
 * HKD 137,601,316
 * 10 T M Opera O (JPN) 1996 USD 16,252,573 GBP 10,881,316 EUR 17,679,578 AUD 29,003,944 JPY 1,835,189,000
 * HKD 126,586,667
 * 13 Equinox (JPN) 2019 (last race 26 Nov 2023) USD 15,947,877 GBP 12,943,807 EUR 14,873,452 AUD 23,939,824
 * JPY 2,209,367,126 HKD 124,756,117 121.45.98.228 (talk) 09:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)