A vintage crop of three-year-olds was given official seal of approval yesterday when a panel of international handicappers endorsed their collective merit. New Approach shared top billing with Curlin as the world's best racehorse, a category in which three-year-olds secured eight of the top 12 places.

New Approach is only the sixth three-year-old this decade to secure a rating of 130. He was followed in the World Thoroughbred Rankings by Raven's Pass on a mark of 129, with Zarkava, the top-ranked filly, on 128. And for the first time in 12 years, three-year-olds who topped each of the five distance categories were all trained in Europe.

New Approach was given preference over Raven's Pass and Zarkava by dint of his six-length victory in the Champion Stakes. Despite the ordinary nature of the opposition, the Jim Bolger-trained colt was adjudged to have advanced by 6lb on his Derby-winning effort.

Although many of last season's crack three-year-olds have since retired to stud, Conduit, Goldikova and Montmartre remain in training. Conduit is rated a superior winner of the St Leger, having followed up that triumph by winning the Breeders' Cup Turf for Sir Michael Stoute.

Conversely, last season's two-year-olds did not impress. “Our view is that the 2008 crop of juveniles was not a vintage one,” Gary O'Gorman, co-chairman of the handicapping panel, said yesterday. Mastercraftsman, trained by Aidan O'Brien, topped the pile on 122, a mark described as “unusually low” by Matthew Tester, the two-year-old handicapper.

Tester highlighted two colts he described as having created “the wow factor” last term. They were Crowded House, runaway winner of the Racing Post Trophy, and the Coventry Stakes winner, Art Connoisseur. O'Gorman, for his part, pointed to the wealth of talent in John Oxx's stable as worthy of attention this year.

A trainer who does not push his two-year-olds, Oxx's four representatives on the two-year-old classification are headed by Arazan, who finished third behind Mastercraftsman in the National Stakes. O'Gorman also made favourable mention of two more Oxx-trained horses in Vitruvian Man and Beauty O'Gwaun, the latter an easy winner of a back-end maiden at the Curragh.