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Eclipse Awards Electorate Face Intellectual Dilemmas
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here is, for the first time in years, uncertainty in the year-end Horse of the Year vote, which is a reliable mirror of the character and flavor of every racing season. An unmistakable sense of susby Paul Moran pense will pervade Gulfstream Park next month when the annual Eclipse Award gala is convened there. Those in the electorate were presented a number of choices, none unreasonable, a change to recent trends in the year-end distribution of hardware to the connections of the season’s most decorated thoroughbreds. Recent years have seen the decision clear-cut and dominated by females. Havre de Grace and Zenyatta were overwhelming choices, the latter a rare transcendent superstar. The race between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta in 2009 was contested and hotly debated, but it was a long way to third, if there was a third in that race. The season just passed, however, left the door ajar to a far more interesting disparity of equine talent and human opinion. Four Horse of the Year contenders In most years, it would without a clear favorite and a three- be difficult to build a case against Royal Delta, who at year-old longshot lend an interesting age four won the Delaware element to the waning days of 2012 Handicap and Beldame Invitational before a jawdropping effort in successful defense of her Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic title. That was one of those races that was stored immediately in the part of the human brain where things unforgettable are kept. It did not guarantee, however, that Royal Delta will be 2012 Horse of the Year. Since American racing’s most important titles are won on dirt, it is usually difficult for a turf-course specialist to overcome the constraints of limited versatility, but when the curtain was drawn on the 29th Breeders’ Cup it was clear that two of the best American runners seen in 2012 built impressive curricula on the lawn. Little Mike may not have been a household name before the Breeders’ Cup Turf, but adding that title to those earned in the Arlington Million and Woodford Reserve Turf Classic, which is often lost in the shadow of the main event on Kentucky Derby Day, certainly puts the five-year-old gelding in the frame. Still, while in 74 THE FLORIDA HORSE • DECEMBER 2012
most years this would be no contest, there is no guarantee that Little Mike will be voted champion male turf horse of 2012. There is Wise Dan to consider. Milers, though theirs is a specialty that demands an alchemy of speed and stamina, are the orphans of American racing. There is no Eclipse Award dedicated to milers who perform on either surface yet Wise Dan, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Mile on the Santa Anita turf and a pure miler, is a strong candidate for Horse of the Year. That victory followed on the heels of the Fourstardave Stakes at Saratoga, Woodbine Mile in Canada and Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland. The streak put Wise Dan atop the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s final weekly poll by a wide margin. It does not, however, assure the gelded five-year-old will be named Horse of the Year, though the award would be neither surprising nor undeserved. Fort Larned may have a more difficult time winning the Horse of the Year vote than he did winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic at the end of a campaign during which he took the Skip Away at Gulfstream, Cornhusker Handicap at Prairie Meadows and Whitney Handicap at Saratoga. True, it was not exactly the best of years in what was once called the handicap division, but Fort Larned’s season was long-lived and by any measure extremely successful. As if four legitimate Horse of the Year candidates failed to offer sufficient variety of type and specialty, there will also be support, albeit unlikely sufficient, for Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I’ll Have Another. Though forced by minor injury to miss the Belmont Stakes when declared on the eve of the race. Based purely upon the exposure he brought to the sport, he, in the eyes of some voters, earned a distinction of such great prestige by winning two legs of the Triple Crown. Four Horse of the Year contenders without a clear favorite and a three-year-old longshot lend an interesting element to the waning days of 2012, one missing from the fait accompli of recent years – a point of debate that demands more than emotion and poses an intellectual challenge to the electorate. Enjoy. ■