The Eclipse Awards finalists are to be announced on the morning of Jan. 15, which means it is time for this reporter to come clean with his own voting record.
I was too young to vote against Richard Nixon in 1968, but I stepped to the plate in 1972 and was among the many joining in the chorus of "I told you so" two years later when he resigned in disgrace.
In 1976 my man was Morris "Mo" Udall, the lanky, one-eyed representative from Arizona who hounded Jimmy Carter all around the country during the Presidential primaries. Udall was a pragmatic liberal and a passionate environmentalist with a sardonic sense of humor. He was beaten by the time the California primary was held that June, but I voted for him anyway, along with the rest of a stubborn 2%.
In 1982 I could not believe my luck to be able to vote for Gore Vidal, the great playwright and novelist who wrote the best political movie ever, "The Best Man." Vidal was running on the level, no lark, against Gov. Jerry Brown in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. This was like filet mignon elbowing for room on the menu with thin gruel. But gruel is what timid voters wanted, and Vidal got only 15%. At least my numbers were going up.
Around that same time a ballot for the Eclipse Awards started arriving in the mail. What joy! I figured my well-considered choices finally would have a shot at national acclaim, since the winners usually were as obvious as a Republican candidate for mayor of Pocatello, Idaho.
What a shock, then, in 1982 when Perrault, the clear first choice for Horse of the Year, was beaten by Conquistador Cielo, a 3-year-old who won the Metropolitan Handicap (G1), the Belmont Stakes (G1), and a couple of lesser 3-year-old events before losing the Travers Stakes (G1) and retiring. Perrault, on the other hand, beat reigning Horse of the Year John Henry on both turf and dirt, and shaded two minutes for the mile and a quarter in winning both the Budwesier Million (later known as the Arlington Million) and Hollywood Gold Cup (G1). What was I missing?
I thought I leaned the right way in 1988 even though my candidate, Great Communicator, lost the male turf championship to Sunshine Forever. Granted, both their records were admirable, and they split their two encounters. However, Great Communicator did beat his rival in the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T), and we were being told at the time that the Breeders' Cup Turf was the most important race for the division. Apparently we were told wrong.
But then the rules were flipped the following year when the vote came down to California-based Grand Canyon, a winner of three graded stakes, including a miracle mile in the Hollywood Futurity (G1), and New York's Rhythm, whose only stakes win that year came in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) when Grand Canyon finished second. Guess who got the trophy?
We also were taught that mares were supposed to get extra credit for beating the boys. That's exactly what Petite Ile did and got my vote for champion turf female in 1990 when she won the Golden Gate Handicap (G2T) and the Sunset Handicap (G2T) in mixed company, and was second, beaten a length, in the Yellow Ribbon Invitational (G1T). Laugh and Be Merry, her eastern counterpart, won the Flower Bowl Handicap (G1T), a pair of grade 3 races, and the Eclipse Award. By then the goalposts were on rails.
Furthermore, it has been the policy of this corner to give a champion deferential credit when returning for another season to defend his or her crown in top company, which is why the Horse of the Year vote should have gone for Tiznow in 2001 as a worthy valedictory to his title of 2000. All he did was win the Santa Anita Handicap (G1), recover from mid-season injury, suffer an interruption to training and travel by 9/11, and then capture a second Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) in a fashion so spectacular that hardened horseplayers still swoon at the memory. But sure, give it instead to a 3-year-old (Point Given) who never made it past August. Horses win back-to-back Breeders' Cup Classics all the time.
There figured to be no real surprises among the 2021 Eclipse Award finalists. That's just as well. In the sport's current atmosphere of storm and strife, something as benign as a distracting stack of self-proclaimed honors is a welcome relief.
Make no mistake, though. Voting for Eclipse Awards is a privilege, but the privilege comes with no instructions, practical or otherwise. More often than not, a voter is wise to step back from personal prejudices and remain blinkered to whatever happened on the racetrack. Sometimes, though, it can feel right to send a message with a vote, no matter how impotent that gesture might be.
The 235 ballots cast for 2021 champions will reveal a mix of the two approaches, especially when it comes to dealing with horses trained by Bob Baffert. No one can argue that the Hall of Fame trainer has become a lightning rod for criticism of the sport, and not simply for the unwashed masses and drive-by media.
To boycott Baffert Eclipse candidates is a voter's statement of deep frustration with the extent to which his apparent mismanagement and public response regarding fairly simple medication issues has put the sport in hot water. On the other hand, those who put to one side the broad impact of Baffert's violations—proven and otherwise—and vote on the merits of his runners contend they are respecting due process and playing fair with the owners of those horses. Take your pick.
For this voter, it was easy to put another horse on top of the three Baffert horses with obvious Eclipse credentials. True, Essential Quality never finished ahead of Medina Spirit, but he never failed to show up, and the overall weight of his record tipped the scale in a toss-up. Corniche is a nice 2-year-old with a cool cruising speed who never got dirty in his two major wins at home. Still, I prefer a colt like Modern Games, who ventured far from his comfort zone and displayed the class to dominate a Breeders' Cup race that should have rattled his brain.
Finally, if Ce Ce can edge Gamine for the champion female sprinter title, that would be enough to erase the scars of Udall, Great Communicator, and the rest. She represents everything you'd like to see in a champion, from her multi-generational breeding and ownership to her wide-ranging campaign, at least by modern standards. She beat defending division champ Gamine, trained by Bob Baffert, in the biggest race of the year and on the square, which is all you can ask of any good horse.
