Awards Season Picks Up Steam With Eclipse Nominees

Buckle up, fight fans. The Eclipse Awards finalists will be announced Jan. 4, just three days after voting closed at noon, West Coast time, on New Year's Day, after which we settled in to watch Indiana make mincemeat of Alabama in the Rose Bowl. Priorities. The idea that there are three viable candidates in each of the 17 categories, horse and human, is ridiculous. Then again, perhaps it is an honor just to be nominated, and the process always helps fill tables at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., where the Eclipse Awards dinner will be held Jan. 22. There was a time when all the winners—except for Horse of the Year—were announced before the dinner. (The exception occurred in 1998, when 2-year-old Favorite Trick was revealed as the 1997 Horse of the Year during a one-and-done, made-for-cable-TV moment staged a couple hours before the dinner held in Palm Desert, Calif.) These days, though, there must be maximum drama, artificial or otherwise, to any ceremonial distribution of competitive honors. And why not? If the event is going to be flogged as the Academy Awards of Thoroughbred racing, there had better be an abundant supply of "... and the winner is..." moments to move the night along. Just don't ask the backers of Journalism, Napoleon Solo, Kopion, Good Cheer, Dorth Vader, Fierceness, and Patch Adams to sit on the edge of their expensive seats, hoping for a miracle of Moonlight/La La Land proportions. The best we storytellers can hope for is a staggering injustice, a name ignored that makes no sense from any angle, calling into question the very sanity of the voting electorate. Alydar never won an Eclipse Award. Exceller never won an Eclipse Award. Neither did Lure, for Pete's sake, or Vigors, Sangue, Lava Man, or Best Pal. Jacinto Vasquez never won an Eclipse. Ditto Jorge Velasquez. And I hope you are sitting down for this, but Eddie Delahoussaye never won an Eclipse Award. There are probably too many of the more than 200 Eclipse Awards votes cast for 2025 by glorified racing fans whose attention is limited to the Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup, renewed only when presented by year-end statistics. For purposes of this discussion, however, your reporter turned to someone who needs to pay attention all the time. He also recently renewed his membership in the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters and therefore was, by his recollection, voting for the first time in several years, through no one's fault but his own. "I think I forgot to pay my dues, so they dropped me," said Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey, from his home in Florida on the second day of the new year. Never mind. It's always good to have someone like Bailey back on the voter list, especially since he won (checks Wikipedia) seven, count 'em, seven Eclipse Awards as the nation's outstanding jockey. His role with the various NBC platforms as analyst for major racing broadcasts will continue this year, including a Preakness Stakes (G1) presented at Laurel Park and the Breeders' Cup at Keeneland. "If you can excel in the biggest races, you deserve consideration," Bailey began. "Among horses, when it's really close, I go to grade 1 races, then 2s and 3s, grouped together. Then I look at their body of work, and who they beat. And if it's still tied after all that, I'll go to head-and-head. "I do give credit for longer campaigns, but there are exceptions," Bailey continued. "For example, I voted for Bentornato this year as champion male sprinter, even though he only ran twice. But they were both so impressive that I gave him the nod over Book'em Danno, who I was leaning toward throughout the year. But then for some reason they decided not to run in the Breeders' Cup. Maybe that was best for the horse, and I tip my hat to them if it was. But when you win the Breeders' Cup the way Bentornato did, that gives you a little more juice." Bailey's last full season was 2005 when he rode the winners of $18.3 million on just 654 mounts. He ranked third in the final purse standings to John Velazquez, the Eclipse winner, and Edgar Prado. For further context, the champion sprinter that year was Lost in the Fog, who won eight of nine starts. "It's so hard to judge horses with limited campaigns, or a minimal number of wins," Bailey said. "Here was a difficult one for me. Scylla ran a lot, but the only race she won was the Breeders' Cup. If she finally found her best distance on that day, it was the biggest day, so she got my vote." There is only one qualification for Eclipse Award eligibility among horses. They must have started at least once in North America. Bailey takes exception. "I do have one hard rule," he said. "If a foreign horse runs only once in this country, I don't consider them." As far as 2025 is concerned, this would disqualify Breeders' Cup race winners Forever Young (JPN), Ethical Diamond (IRE), and Gezora (FR), along with such past Eclipse Award winners as Miesque, Goldikova, Conduit, High Chaparral, Ouija Board, and Inspiral (GB). "Look, Forever Young probably should have gotten my vote, but he only ran here once," said Bailey, referring to the Japanese colt who won the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). "It's our awards, an American award. I don't think it's asking a lot to run here twice." Then comes Horse of the Year, and Bailey's take on the consensus leader of the pack. Godolphin's Sovereignty was trained by Bill Mott to take the Kentucky Derby (G1), Belmont Stakes (G1), Jim Dandy Stakes (G2), and Travers Stakes (G1) before his season abruptly ended because of a fever that removed him from a date in the Breeders' Cup Classic. For all that, Sovereignty bypassing the Preakness still sticks in Bailey's craw, and not only because of the absence of the Derby winner from the NBC telecast. "As much as I love Bill Mott, I was very disappointed," Bailey said, "especially after he said, if any horse could win the Triple Crown, this was the horse. And then they passed. "But I don't want to penalize the horse for what he did accomplish, and I didn't see another standout," he added. "I will say, though, if Journalism could have won the Breeders' Cup Classic, in addition to everything else he did, then we would have had a different conversation about Horse of the Year." As far as the human award winners, Bailey at least should be counted on to make the right choice among jockeys. "It was so tight between Flavien Prat and Irad Ortiz," he said. "Irad won more races, and the money came down to a difference of about $1,600, insanely close. Flavien won more grade 1 races, more graded stakes, and his win percentage was better, so I voted for him. But it was a flip of the coin." If Prat wins, he will have his second Eclipse, compared to number six if the vote goes to Ortiz. Either way, they'd still be chasing Bailey's magnificent seven, accomplished in the nine seasons between 1995 and 2003. "I thought there was one I should have won, and one time I should not have won when I did," Bailey said. "I can't remember exactly which years, but at least it all evened out."