MySQL return first row of a joined table

Question

I have two tables (country & ducks) where the country table has every country in the world and the ducks table has a list of ducks with a country_id field to link to the

Answer 1

SELECT c.*, d.*
FROM country c 
  INNER JOIN ducks d 
    ON d.id =                         --- guessing the ducks Primary Key here
       ( SELECT dd.id                 --- and here  
         FROM ducks dd
         WHERE c.id = dd.country_id
         ORDER BY dd.rating DESC
         LIMIT 1
       )

An index on (country_id, rating, id) for MyISAM table or (country_id, rating) for InnoDB table, would help.

This query will show only one duck per country, even with more than one having the same rating. If you want ducks with tied rating to appear, use @imm's GROUP BY answer.