Skilled photographers know how to be prepared at the right place and time to capture great images.
Veteran New York photographer Skip Dickstein was in that place Aug. 31 for the start of the 2025 Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course where he captured a chain reaction that unseated jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. from Mindframe . Dickstein's remarkable image of Ortiz suspended between the necks of Mindframe and White Abarrio—grasping their manes, and his feet dangling about a foot from the ground and inches from their front legs—was honored with the 2025 Eclipse Award for outstanding photography. The photo ran on BloodHorse platforms.
The award is Dickstein's second Eclipse Award, having won the first in 1996 for a head-on shot of Alphabet Soup, Louis Quatorze, and Cigar battling at the finish of the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Woodbine that appeared on the cover of the Nov. 2, 1996, BloodHorse magazine.
"I shoot every start because there are two places in a race where things are most likely to happen, at the start and the finish," Dickstein said. "Right after the start you could clearly see there was going to be action that wasn't just racing."
Positioned about 120 feet past the wire along the outside rail, Dickstein watched through a Nikon Z9 180 mm-600 mm Nikon zoom as Phileas Fogg, breaking from the seventh post position in an eight-horse field, moved sharply to his left, forcing Contrary Thinking into White Abarrio, who in turn bumped solidly into Mindframe.
Read About the Other 2025 Media Eclipse Award Winners
"I stayed with the shot in anticipation that something unusual was likely to happen and the jockeys started to react to it," Dickstein said. Ortiz eventually fell to the ground and was taken to Albany Medical Center for evaluation. He fortunately escaped any serious injuries.
Dickstein added that if Ortiz had been severely injured, he likely would have not had this photo published.
"I know we are here to record the event but that needs to be done with some discretion," he said. "That Ortiz was able come through this without being seriously injured is more important than the picture.
"It was one of the best action images I've ever made," he added. "I have won it (the Eclipse Award) before from a remote, but never a hand-held image. This brings a greater sense of satisfaction as the hand-held image is far more personal."
Dickstein, who lives in Malta, N.Y., has been photographing for the Times-Union the past 45 years and for BloodHorse since 1978.
Born and raised in Albany, N.Y., Dickstein attended Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and credits Bill Clough, as his primary photo journalism mentor at the Beaumont Enterprise and Journal Newspaper. Dickstein has covered every Kentucky Derby since 1986 and all 42 Breeders' Cup World Championships as well as many other national sporting events including the National Track and Field Championships, the Olympic Trials for track and field, bobsled, and luge, as well as the 1980 and 1996 Olympic Games.
Dickstein said winning an Eclipse Award is particularly gratifying because the level of competition is so high.
"It has been 29 years since the last one I won and I enter every year. That's how competitive it is," he said.
BloodHorse also saw senior correspondent Lenny Shulman earn a Media Eclipse honorable mention in the Feature/Commentary category for his magazine story "Racing Royalty," a profile of the late Patrice Wolfson, which was published in the July 1, 2025, issue.
Winners in the other Media Eclipse categories for 2025 include:
Live Television Programming—FOX Sports, "The Belmont Stakes," Michael Mulvihill, president-insight & analytics, June 7, 2025
Feature Television—FOX Sports, "The Healing Ride," Michael Mulvihill, president—insight & analytics, June 7, 2025
Writing—News/Enterprise--Natalie Voss, Paulick Report—"Doom Scroll: Thoroughbreds, Bail Pens, And Horse Traders," December 2024
Writing—Feature/Commentary—Jay Privman, DRF.com and Daily Racing Form, "Lukas Morphed from Caustic to Avuncular," June 29, 2025
Multimedia—Augusta Chapman and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics Radio "The Horse is Us: Inside the Horse-Industrial Complex," Oct. 31, 2025
