BY MANY measures Gentildonna is a racing great. She was the first horse to win two Japan Cups, she landed a Group 1 in Dubai and took her prize-money haul to more than £12 million with success in Japan's big betting race of the year, the Arima Kinen on Sunday, December 28th, 2014.
In those four championship victories she beat a host of big names and gained a lot of fans. But those high-profile successes and mountain of prize-money is only half the story of Gentildonna - the synthetic half.
The other half isn't quite so impressive. It concerns the nuts and bolts of what she achieved on the racecourse, including the seven losses from her last ten starts and the fact that, on ratings at least, she wouldn't rank anywhere near the world's best this year.
On Sunday the richest racemare in history posted an RPR of 117 for her three-quarter length success, which is her highest rating for the last two seasons, but it still leaves her outside the top 100 turf performers worldwide for 2014.
This might seem an uncomfortable juxtaposition - such a wealthy race yet such a low rating - but performance and reward in horseracing have only a vague relationship. With purses in Japan far exceeding other nations it's no coincidence Japan Cup and Arima Kinen winners litter the top-earners' list.