SENTrack's Campbell Brown and Cam Luke have rated their top 3 horses of the 2022/23 racing season.
The season came to a close on Sunday, marking the end of another terrific racing campaign which saw so many gallopers announce themselves as true stars of the sport.
Whether it was the already-proven champs like Anamoe or the up-and-coming stars like Giga Kick, the season had it all.
Take a look at Brown and Luke’s top three (or five if you’re Cam Luke).
Browny's top 3
3 - Giga Kick
“Giga Kick had only two career starts before August 1 where he won a Sale maiden and then went to Flemington and won that two-year-old handicap,” Brown told SENTrack.
“In the calendar year he won his first Group 3, the Group 2 Danehill and then it goes up and wins The Everest.
“Fifth in the championship sprint, third in the Challenge Stakes and then comes back and goes bang bang in the All Aged Stakes and makes a mess of them in the Doomben 10,000.
“Pretty hard to go past Giga Kick.”
2 - Mr Brightside
“This is a bit of a favourite of ours, Mr Brightside has to be the most consistent galloper in the country.
“Absolute freak of a horse this calendar year, he won the Group 2 PB Lawrence Stakes, the Feehan and then it runs in the Underwood, Might And Power, Cox Plate, Champions Miles where he doesn’t get beaten by more than two lengths.
“He then comes back in the autumn and wins the All Star Mile and wins the Doncaster on that heavy deck.
“Very good horse.”
1 - Anamoe
“Anamoe has to be number one.
“He won six Group 1s this racing season, has been retired to stud but he’s an absolute freak.
“I was at Caulfield when he won that Might And Power, that’s as good a win as I’ve seen.”
The 2022/23 racing season saw so many horses announce themselves as the stars of the industry!@Browndogg_30x & @camluke were tasked with the job to name the top 3 performers of the season. @SEN_track pic.twitter.com/ocsc262cmM
— SEN 1116 (@1116sen) August 1, 2023
Cam Luke's top 4
3 - Giga Kick, Alligator Blood & Dubai Honour
“I do have Giga Kick for all the reasons you pointed out, I was worried about how he would back up in the autumn, was that Everest a flash in the pan, he looked like he was looking for 1400m in the Champions sprint where he didn’t have a lot of luck.
“He rolled back in and it took I Wish I Win to beat him and then he went on from there.
“You’ve got to have Alligator Blood in there, he was outstanding, he won the Futurity in the autumn, he was disappointing in the All-Star Mile and the Doncaster.
“Prior to that he won the Champions Mile, he was huge in the Cox Plate, won the Underwood, you’ve got to have him there.
“Dubai Honour gets in there as well, if we’re talking about the best performed horses in this country in the last 12 months, you have to have Dubai Honour in this conversation.
“Not just because he won two Group 1s, but because he belted the best horse we’d seen in Anamoe.”
2 - I Wish I Win
“He had an amazing season, he burst onto the scene with a famous betting plunge at Caulfield on that day where everyone got involved.
“He kept going through the grades and although he didn’t have the best day on Toorak Day and then everyone forgot about him on Golden Eagle Day.
“He started at around $12, Luke Nolen got him home and then from there he went to a whole new level.
“What he did in the TJ was outstanding and he’s going to be hard to beat come the Everest.
“I think he's one of the rare horses in the country who is being trained for what he gets set for, a lot of horses get set for and trained based on how they are.
“If Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman wanted to get him to 2000m, he could get there, legitimately I think he would and a lot of people disagree with that but I think if he was trained to be a 2000m horse, he would run 2000m.
“They’re not going to do that because they might think his best distance is between 1200-1600m and that’s the way they go about it.”
1 - Anamoe
“It’s very hard to mount an argument to suggest that Anamoe wasn’t the best horse over the last 12 months.
“There was some disappointment from a lot of Australian racing fans, myself included, that Dubai Honour dealt with him fairly comfortably at the back end of that Autumn and he probably lost that momentum to go to Royal Ascot which would’ve been great.
“He’s going to go and spend the rest of his life making love to beautiful mares who pay a lot of cash to do so.
“He is and was the best horse in Australia the last 12 months.”