IRISH CHAMPION STAKES:SEA THE STARS put up the best performance of his glittering career to date in Saturday's Tattersalls Millions Irish Champion Stakes while leaving the widespread impression that his best may still be about to come in next month's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

John Oxx’s superstar colt recorded the fifth Group One success of a perfect season so far when putting pre-race fears about the condition of the Leopardstown turf firmly to bed with a sparkling defeat of Fame And Glory and Mastercraftsman.

Afterwards jockey Mick Kinane acclaimed Sea The Stars as the best he has ridden while Oxx described him as a “landmark horse, one of those that only comes along every 25 to 30 years.” Certainly the 9,000-strong crowd that turned up for a “clash of the titans” instead made their appreciation of a coronation perfectly clear as Sea The Stars returned to a tumultuous reception that smacked more of a winter National Hunt event.

But if that was a relatively rare example of a flat horse grabbing the public imagination in Ireland, even cold statistics were also singing off the same admiring hymn-sheet yesterday as Sea The Stars was handed a provisional rating of 134, the highest of his career to date.

That’s a 1lb improvement on what he achieved in the Eclipse and only Peintre Celebre (137) and Montjeu (135) have achieved higher marks in the last dozen years. But Ireland’s head handicapper is in little doubt that Sea The Stars is capable of considerably better than he has already shown.

“He is one of those horses that present handicappers with a dilemma because he only does what he has to do to win. The problem could end up being finding a horse good enough to put it up to Sea The Stars and drag out all that he has got,” Garry O’Gorman said yesterday.

That 134 figure has to be ratified by O’Gorman’s international colleagues this week but with Saturday’s runner-up, Fame And Glory, now provisionally rated 129, with Mastercraftsman on 125, Saturday’s race was enough to convince O’Gorman of the winner’s quality.

“I’ve been doing this job for 10 years and I believe he is the best I’ve seen in that time. Older people have been talking about Nijinsky and Ribot but we still don’t know just how good Sea The Stars is.

“Hopefully we will learn more in the Arc, the race where Peintre Celebre and Montjeu put up their highest rating. Professionally we can only go on the evidence, but personally I’ve no doubt Sea The Stars is at least as good as them,” he said.

Plenty of other legendary names of the past are being bounced around in an effort to place the undoubted champion of 2009 in historical context. It is an always enjoyable if necessarily hypothetical argument but only the miserly will dispute the ease with which Sea The Stars has entered the “greatness” debate.

The horse was imperious in landing a race that his half-brother, Galileo, could finish only runner-up in 2001.

A decision by the Leopardstown authorities to create two tracks, and run the two Group Ones on an outer course, paid off with ground as near to good as made no difference. Sea The Stars travelled with supreme ease through the race and even an early move by Johnny Murtagh on Fame And Glory before the turn in couldn’t disrupt the 4 to 6 favourite’s almost serene passage.

Fame And Glory delivered a performance that would have won almost any renewal of the Champion Stakes so far this century but his sad fate looks to be having been foaled in the same year as a freakish talent.

“He’s just a phenomenal horse,” Oxx said. “He’s had five Group Ones in five months and while that is not an ideal Arc preparation we will look at Longchamp and see what the ground will be like.”

Significantly there seems to be a belief growing in the Oxx camp that as Sea The Stars matures and strengthens, his ground requirements may not be as strict as they were earlier in the season. That could prove vital in terms of the Arc, although the Champion Stakes, or maybe even the Breeders’ Cup Classic, could yet come into the equation too.

Kinane, however, is in no doubt about how special this colt is. “I’ve been fortunate to ride some wonderful horses but this fella is top of the tree. It doesn’t matter about trip, or ground, he just has this wonderful natural speed,” the veteran jockey said.

“He never does too much when he hits the front but this time he said okay, a couple of lengths, but don’t be getting carried away!”

So, after a landmark occasion for Irish racing, who knows – the best may yet be to come.