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Australia, Great Britain and the United States are represented in the top 5 of the first Global Rankings for 2018.

The first edition of the Global Rankings sees little change at the top. The retirement of Arrogate left a space in the top 5 which is filled by Gun Runner, who put up a career best on his final performance in January's Pegasus World Cup.

The list includes those horses that have raced in 2018 or are reported still to be in training. We have yet to see Prix de l'Abbaye de Longchamp Longines winner Battaash in public, but his companion at the top of the list, Cracksman, was given a racecourse gallop at Newmarket earlier in the week and remains on target for the Prix Ganay at the re-opened and re-branded ParisLongchamp later this month.

At least we have had the opportunity to see the much-loved Australian mare Winx in competitive action, most recently when she extended her winning sequence to twenty-five races (matching Black Caviar's record) when landing the Group 1 Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick.

The biggest mover in the top 10 is West Coast, but his rating comes from chasing home Gun Runner at Gulfstream Park rather than Thunder Snow in an unsatisfactory renewal of the Dubai World Cup in which a track bias and jockey tactics played a significant role. Thunder Snow's performance was matched earlier at the Carnival in the Group 2 Meydan Sprint by both Ertijaal and Blue Point, who is the highest-rated horse entered for Champions Day at Sha Tin on April 29th. Simon Rowlands has written about the European challenge on the day for the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

The highest-rated performance on World Cup night came earlier on the card when Mendelssohn crushed the opposition in the UAE Derby. He's the top three-year-old in the list and is in the mix now for the Kentucky Derby.