Who is the Best Event Horse in the World?

If we are to go by EquiRatings HPR, fischerChipmunk FRH is the best event horse in the world. His ten highest career performances at four-star and five-star total 1,082, three clear of Lordships Graffalo on 1,079 and eleven clear of London 52 on 1,071.

Three horses, three careers, eleven rating points between them. The order is the one Aachen produced two weeks ago. It is the closest this argument has ever been.

Here are the ten best runs of each career, at four-star and five-star, rounded to whole numbers.

Lordships Graffalo owns the top of the list. fischerChipmunk FRH owns the bottom of it. That is the whole race. Graffalo's best five runs total 552 against Chipmunk's 549. Chipmunk's second five total 533 against Graffalo's 527. Peak against depth, and depth wins by three.

Chipmunk has never posted a 112 or a 113. What he has is a floor nobody else matches. His tenth best career run rates 106, two points above Graffalo's and one above London 52. His ten runs sit inside a range of five points. Graffalo's spread nine.

Graffalo's 113 is not just the best run of these three careers. It is the highest HPR EquiRatings has recorded in eventing since the ratings began in 2008. It came at Le Pin au Haras in August 2023, winning the European Championship on 25.3.

The margin is what drives the number. Ros Canter and Graffalo finished 6.7 penalties clear of the field in a European final, and HPR rewards exactly that combination of depth and daylight.

Graffalo was 11 years old that day. The best run in the history of the ratings came from a horse who is now 14 and still improving.

The totals are close. The routes to them are not. Seven of Graffalo's ten counting runs came at CCI5*-L. Six of London 52's came at CCI4*-S.

Graffalo built his total at Badminton and Burghley. Six of his ten best came at those two venues alone. London 52 built his at Bicton, Belsay, Burnham Market and Thoresby, one-day four-stars where the demand is different. Nine of his ten were wins, the best strike rate of the three.

HPR already adjusts for field strength and course difficulty, so a four-star run is not automatically worth less. What the split shows is where each horse was asked the question. Graffalo answered it on the biggest tracks in the sport, seven times.

Three days where two of these horses both produced a run good enough to make their career top ten.

The maths is simple. Graffalo's tenth counter is a 104. Post a 107 next time out and he draws level with Chipmunk on 1,082. Post a 108 and he leads outright. He has cleared 108 five times already.

London 52 cannot do it in one run. His tenth counter is a 105, so he would need an HPR of 117, and nothing in the history of the ratings has gone that high. Chipmunk needs a 107 just to improve his own total, and at 18 the starts are finite.

Five-star record against championship record is the argument the sport will keep having. Chipmunk has the Olympic and world individual titles. Graffalo has three Badmintons, two Burghleys, a European title, but no world or Olympic individual gold. London 52 has three five-stars and a European title.

HPR does not weight the titles. It rates the performance, and by that measure three of the greatest horses of the era are separated by eleven points. Chipmunk is the best of them today. Graffalo is 14, he owns the highest-rated run in the history of the ratings, and he is the one with a soft counter to replace. On his next start he can take it.