Ka Ying Rising holds top spot in latest world racehorse rankings

Ka Ying Rising remained the horse everyone else is chasing, holding No. 1 in the latest Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings with a rating of 130. The gap is plain on the scoreboard: the nearest trio, Nysos, Notable Speech and Ombudsman, are all five pounds back at 125, leaving the Hong Kong sprinter as the clear global standard as the season turns toward the summer stakes.

That matters because the rankings are doing more than handing out labels. They are mapping the current hierarchy of the sport, and right now the picture says the sprint and middle-distance divisions are crowded with credible names, but none has yet forced Ka Ying Rising off the summit. The fourth edition of the 2026 list covers horses aged 3 and up that raced from January 1 through June 7, and it captures the movement from the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga Race Course into the heart of the summer campaign.

Nysos produced the sharpest American move in the latest cut, jumping into a tie for fifth after his Metropolitan Handicap victory at Saratoga on June 6. The 1-mile dirt Grade 1 was worth $1 million, and it lifted Bob Baffert’s colt from 121 to 125. White Abarrio sits next on the U.S. side at 124 after his Oaklawn Handicap win earlier in the spring, while Sovereignty and Magnitude are clustered at 122, a grouping that points directly toward their June 27 clash in the Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs.

The other names near the top tell the same story of a deep, international chase pack. Ombudsman arrived at 125 after winning the Brigadier Gerard Stakes, and Notable Speech joined him there after taking the Lockinge Stakes. Cherie DeVaux’s Englishman and dual classic winner Golden Tempo are both rated 120, a reminder that the rankings are not only measuring the world’s fastest horse but also identifying the American runners most likely to shape the next round of major races.

Ka Ying Rising’s hold at 130 is rooted in more than one headline performance. Trained by David Hayes and owned by the Ka Ying Syndicate, the New Zealand-bred gelding is listed by the Hong Kong Jockey Club with a local rating of 142 and a start-of-season mark of 134. His rise in the international table followed wins in the G2 Sprint Cup and G1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize at Sha Tin, where he lowered his own track record and stretched his winning streak to 20. That combination of unbeaten momentum and historical strength is why the world rankings now read less like a list and more like a warning to the rest of the sport.