2023 Eclipse Awards: Awakened

A gelding who began the season as a maiden race winner with plenty to prove did that and much more in 2023.

Awakened won the first Grade 1 race of his career at the famous Saratoga meeting in August and ended the season as a finalist for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding steeplechaser of the year.

Awakened, who races for Riverdee Stable and Ten Strike Racing, was never worse than third in five starts, won twice, and was at his best in the spring and summer. He showed the sort of improvement that not only pushed him to the fore of the national division in 2023, but tipped that he could reach even greater heights in the future.

A gelding by Curlin bred in Kentucky by Phipps Stable, Awakened began his 6-year-old season with a third-place finish in an allowance race over hurdles at 2 1/8 miles at Middleburg, Virginia, in April. The race served as a good start to the season, a prep for a convincing win by 4 3/4 lengths in an allowance race over hurdles at 2 3/8 miles at Malvern, Pa., in late May.

:: Full list of 2023 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Awakened was eligible for stakes in the novice division when the Saratoga meeting began. Fisher took advantage of the restricted status to start Awakened in the Jonathan Kiser Novices’ Hurdle at 2 1/16 miles on Aug. 2. Awakened closed from fourth in a field of eight to finish a clear second behind McTigue.

The performance was bright enough to justify a start in the premier jump race of the Saratoga season, the Grade 1 Jonathan Sheppard Handicap at 2 3/8 miles on Aug. 23.

Dismissed at 6-1 in the $150,000 race, Awakened closed from ninth of 10 to win by a length in the best performance of his career.

“I was pretty confident, just because I knew he’d like the distance and I knew he’d like the ground being firm,” Fisher told New York Racing Association publicity.

The win provided a remarkable milestone for owner Riverdee Stable’s Sean Clancy, the award-winning journalist, who this year won his second Eclipse for writing.

Not only was the Sheppard the first Grade 1 win for Riverdee Stable, but Clancy won the corresponding race as a jockey in 1988, when it was known as the New York Turf Writers Cup.

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Clancy had followed Awakened since the gelding won a maiden race at 1 1/4 miles on turf at Ellis Park in the summer of 2021 in his 10th and final start for Shug McGaughey. Awakened won a maiden race over hurdles in his fourth start over obstacles in 2022.

Remarkably, another former McGaughey-trained runner, Snap Decision, also is a finalist for the 2023 steeplechase Eclipse Award.

Awakened was held out of the Grand National meeting at Far Hills in New Jersey in October because of concern over wet ground. Instead, Awakened finished his 2023 season with a third-place finish behind Snap Decision in the Grade 2 Zeke Ferguson Memorial Handicap Hurdle at Great Meadow in Virginia in late October.

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