seen from Poland
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from Italy
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from China
Just my opinion, but I think a horse should have to start in the US more than just once in a year to be eligible for an Eclipse Award. Doesn't have to win more than once (necessarily) but be around more often.
The Breeders' Cup is just one day, after all. I hate that they're the be all end all. Often this is an irritant when it come to the turf awards as well, when the Euros come over and dominate. Goldikova made me a little miffed as well, years ago.
The 52nd annual Eclipse Awards were presented on Jan. 26, with the coveted champion 3-year-old male trophy going to Epicenter.
Happy Eclipse Awards Day!
All in all I feel that this year’s awards weren’t particularly controversial? There was a lot of debate around Turf Female and 3yo Colt, but while both votes were far from unanimous, they were pretty decisive with Regal Glory & Epicenter getting the gold by comfortable margins. My biggest surprise is probably that Cody’s Wish got more votes than Jackie’s Warrior for Male Sprinter (though no surprise they both lost the award to Elite Power).
This year also didn’t have any funny off the wall votes like we get some years. I was half expecting a vote for Beverly Park to pop up somewhere.
Eclipse Awards 2018: Voter Breakdown
I find this really interesting every year, so here we go!
HORSE OF THE YEAR: JUSTIFY
2-YEAR-OLD MALE: GAME WINNER
2-YEAR-OLD FEMALE: JAYWALK
3-YEAR-OLD MALE: JUSTIFY
3-YEAR-OLD FEMALE: MONOMOY GIRL
OLDER DIRT MALE: ACCELERATE
OLDER DIRT FEMALE: UNIQUE BELLA
MALE SPRINTER: ROY H
FEMALE SPRINTER: SHAMROCK ROSE
MALE TURF: STORMY LIBERAL
FEMALE TURF: SISTERCHARLIE
STEEPLECHASE HORSE: ZANJABEEL
OWNER: HRONIS RACING LLC
BREEDER: JOHN D. GUNTHER
TRAINER: CHAD BROWN
JOCKEY: IRAD ORTIZ, JR.
APPRENTICE JOCKEY: WESTON HAMILTON
In honor of Sistercharlie’s Eclipse Award, I thought I’d edit one of the better photos I took of her shortly before she took the Diana. (Well, that and I wanted new wallpaper for the laptop.) Here’s to her 2019 season- she’s quite the horse.
That moment when you’ve been offline for a large part for the last two weeks catching up on schoolwork and being sick. So you miss the memo initially that tonight’s the Eclipse Awards and thus have this face when you start getting notifications for it:
"I voted Bolt d'Oro - Solomini - Good Magic in that order."
What the hell. People whine about "west coast bias" all the time but I've never taken it seriously until now.
"Solomini won a Gr.I even with the DQ."
If Solomini won the Gr.I, then we can just add him to the list of Gr.I winners Good Magic beat. That will make the list 5.
California Chrome, 2016 Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winner
Congratulations, California Chrome-2016 Eclipse Award Horse of the Year! A well-deserved honor! 🏇🏼🏆
