photo by: Michael Amoruso

Ramon Dominguez is a finalist to win a third consecutive Eclipse Award for outstanding jockey after a 2012 season in which he set a record for purse earnings by a rider in a single year.

photo by: Benoit & Associates

His name may elicit varying degrees of emotions, but there is one fact that is virtually unanimous: Violence is scary good.

photo by: Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer Photography

After winning the 2001 Kentucky Derby with Monarchos, owner John Oxley took 11 years to make it back to the world’s most famous horse race. Unfortunately, his 2012 starter, Prospective, could only manage an 18th-place finish in the run for the roses.

photo by: Barbara D. Livingston

Javier Castellano has never experienced a better year in the saddle than the one he had in 2012. He won 325 races for mount earnings of $22,441,852 and is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding jockey.

If Pierrot Lunaire does not win the 2012 Eclipse Award as champion steeplechaser, his connections might want to lobby racing for the creation of a new honor. How about Comeback Player of the Year?

photo by: Emily Shields

By the time Zagora left Saratoga last season, her year was reaching a crescendo. She had already won four stakes on turf and finished third in the Grade 1 Diana Stakes to stake a rightful place among the nation’s top turf females.

photo by: Tom Keyser

When he stepped onto the Gulfstream Park grass course in February to make his first start of 2012, Point of Entry had never even run in a turf stakes race, and when he stepped off after finishing fourth in a second-level allowance race, there was no obvious reason to believe Point of Entry was on a fast track to su

photo by: Barbara D. Livingston

It wasn’t until a few days before Breeders’ Cup Saturday that trainer Dale Romans even decided Little Mike would start in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

photo by: Adam Coglianese/NYRA

Oh what might have been.