2025 Eclipse Awards: Good Cheer

Before she launched her 3-year-old campaign in 2025, Good Cheer already was famous. After all, she won all four starts in 2024 and was an Eclipse Award finalist for champion 2-year-old filly. The award went to Good Cheer’s 4-for-4 stablemate Immersive.

Roles reversed in 2025. Good Cheer rose to the head of the class for trainer Brad Cox and owner-breeder Godolphin. Following a 2025 campaign highlighted by a decisive victory in the Grade 1 Longines Kentucky Oaks, Good Cheer is an Eclipse finalist again, this time for champion 3-year-old filly.

Good Cheer’s bloodlines are stellar. She is by Medaglia d’Oro and produced by Grade 1 winner Wedding Toast, a Godolphin-owned Eclipse finalist for champion dirt female in 2015. Good Cheer is the fourth, and best, runner produced by Wedding Toast.

After a short winter break, Good Cheer launched her 3-year-old campaign in February at Fair Grounds. With regular rider Luis Saez aboard, Good Cheer ran as expected in the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra. She tucked inside, waited for room, angled out, and crushed by 6 1/4 lengths.

“She did it pretty easy,” Saez said afterward. “We knew we had the best horse in race, and she got a little schooling today.”

The comeback win gave Saez and Cox confidence to continue toward the main objective.

“We’re very proud of her and very excited about her moving forward on the road to the Kentucky Oaks,” Cox said.

:: Full list of 2025 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Good Cheer, 5 for 5, stayed at Fair Grounds for her Kentucky Oaks prep in the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks on March 22.

Odds-on in an eight-runner field, Good Cheer ran away by 3 1/2 lengths. The timing was perfect. It gave Good Cheer six weeks until the Kentucky Oaks, one of the season’s most important stakes for fillies.

Favored at 1.39-1 in the Kentucky Oaks, Good Cheer and Saez broke from post 10 in the 13-runner field. Saez kept Good Cheer out in the clear, wide in eighth. She rallied wide on the far turn and drew off by 2 1/4 lengths over a track listed wet fast.

Good Cheer is the third Kentucky Oaks winner by Medaglia d’Oro, joining Rachel Alexandra (2009) and Plum Pretty (2011). Good Cheer also joined a select list of undefeated Kentucky Oaks winners. Good Cheer, Malathaat (2021), and Tiffany Lass (1986) are the only undefeated Oaks winners in the past 40 years.

The win streak by Good Cheer ended at seven. She subsequently finished fifth in the Grade 1 DK Horse Acorn and second in the Grade 1 Alabama presented by Keeneland Sales, both at Saratoga. Her season ended with a sixth-place finish in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx Racing.

Good Cheer won three races and $1,430,600 from six starts in 2025; overall she has won seven races and $1,888,320 from 10 starts. Plans call for Good Cheer to race as a 4-year-old in 2026.

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