Flightline’s thrilling sequence of six victories from as many starts identified him as without equal in 2022, and that was rubber-stamped Jan. 17 when he was bestowed with the accolade of Longines World’s Best Racehorse.
The award was presented to Flightline’s connections at a ceremony in London, England, by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. The IFHA’s panel of international handicappers sprang a surprise by ranking Flightline on a par with Frankel. The latter’s official rating of 140 was the highest given to any racehorse since North American-trained horses first appeared on the world rankings table in 1995.
As for Flightline’s superiority over his contemporaries, he was ranked five pounds superior to Baaeed  (135), the outstanding turf racehorse in Europe last year; and 14 pounds ahead of Nature Strip  (126), the best horse in Australasia and the world’s top-rated sprinter. These horses filled the first three spots on the global standings list.

In a domestic context, Flightline was rated 15 pounds ahead of Epicenter  and Life Is Good  (125), both of whom shared fourth place in the global standings with Prix du Jockey Club (G1) and Coral-Eclipse Stakes (G1) winner Vadeni . Horses trained in the U.S. thus filled three of the top six spots. In other distance categories for U.S. horses, Epicenter emerged as the leading 3-year-old, Life Is Good the leading miler, and Jack Christopher  the leading sprinter.