Rattling off five consecutive victories from spring through fall, capped by the Nov. 5 Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Keeneland, Juddmonte's Elite Power surged to Eclipse Award honors as champion male sprinter of 2022.
Buoyed by his late-season stakes achievements, the Bill Mott trainee outpolled stablemate Cody's Wish , the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) winner, 2021 champion male sprinter Jackie's Warrior , and others. Still an allowance competitor through the summer, Elite Power notched his first stakes victory in taking the Oct. 8 Vosburgh Stakes (G2) during the Belmont at the Big A meet at Aqueduct Racetrack.
His Vosburgh performance, in which he defeated Eastern Bay by 5 3/4 lengths with seven furlongs in 1:23.98, earned him an automatic berth in the Breeders' Cup. Then at Keeneland, he rallied from seventh and passed three horses in the final eighth of a mile to edge C Z Rocket by 1 1/4 lengths, with favored Jackie's Warrior a half-length back in third.
Elite Power raced six furlongs under Irad Ortiz Jr. in 1:09.11, registering a career-best 111 Equibase Speed Figure.
Lightly raced due to shin issues and other minor setbacks early in his career, Elite Power finished off the board in a pair of sophomore starts in 2021. "And we brought him back (in 2022), and he's been sound as a bell of brass," Mott said after the Breeders' Cup Sprint.
Classy, too, compiling a 5-for-6 record and earning nearly $1.4 million in 2022. His lone defeat of his 4-year-old season was a third-place finish in a Churchill Downs maiden race in early May.
Elite Power's score was the second Breeders' Cup win on the day for his Hall of Fame trainer after Cody's Wish's victory in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and a 12th career win at the World Championships. Elite Power was Juddmonte's eighth Breeders' Cup triumph.
A chestnut by Curlin out of the graded-winning Vindication mare Broadway's Alibi, Elite Power was a $900,000 purchase from the Lane's End consignment at the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. Alpha Delta Stables bred him in Kentucky.
"Going back to when (late owner) Prince Khalid (bin Abdullah) was with us, he wanted to start buying some horses at the sales," Juddmonte general manager Garrett O'Rourke said after the Breeders' Cup. "Obviously we got off to a good start with ($17.4 million earner) Arrogate and followed up with horses like this guy, just a beautiful horse from the very beginning."
