Jay Hovdey

In a perfectly honest world -- as in the brutally frank Ricky Gervais version of hosting the vapid Golden Globes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tueD59x8JUo) -- the Eclipse Awards Dinner would acknowledge its sport as bloody, fractured, awash in medication, and stubbornly neglectful when it comes to the welfare of its customers and stars. But it won't.

It's Jan. 3, three short days and long nights into the New Year, and I have yet to fail in keeping any of the sincere and necessary resolutions that I made at the dawning of Two-Oh-One-One.

That whirring sound coming from the southern tip of New York's Otsego County is Spectacular Bid spinning -- okay, be cute -- twirling in his grave. The ground may be covered with snow, but he's down there, a restless soul, wondering what he ever did to deserve the dissing dealt his memory on Sunday at Santa Anita, when a very nice horse named Twirling Candy and a very nice sprinter named Smiling Tiger BOTH broke Bid's 30-year-old track record for 7 furlongs in the Malibu Stakes.

The ballots for Eclipse Awards will be sent out this coming week, to a list of 247 voters who represent such diverse constituencies as Equibase chart-callers and field reps, racing secretaries, turf writers and a whole slew of folks who work for the Daily Racing Form, which is as it should be, since the Racing Form is one of the sponsors of the awards. So there.

The next time Big Mama makes a splash should be the spring of 2012 when she's got her first foal by her side. Save the day. In the meantime, take or leave this opportunity to say goodbye to one of the mostest hosses of a lifetime, and figure that Dylan was singing about her when he wrote the last part of "Eternal Circle" -- As the tune finally folded/ I laid down the guitar/ Then looked for the girl/