Harper's speech is high note of fast-paced Eclipse Awards dinner

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Justify went away with the most impressive hardware, but it was Joe Harper, Sarai and Irad Ortiz Jr., and Weston Hamilton who made the biggest impressions at the 48th annual Eclipse Awards dinner Thursday night at Gulfstream Park.

Justify, the 2018 Triple Crown winner, was named Horse of the Year and was a unanimous choice for champion 3-year-old male. He received 191 first-place votes for Horse of the Year to 54 for runner-up Accelerate, who won a divisional title as champion older male on dirt.

“I want to thank Bob Baffert,” Kenny Troutt, the owner of WinStar Farm, said when accepting the Eclipse Award on behalf of Justify’s ownership group. “He’s starting to get this Triple Crown down.”

But it was Harper – the chief executive of Del Mar who was honored with the Eclipse Award of Merit – who provided some of the best moments of the night, as he was given nearly four minutes to make a self-deprecating yet heartfelt speech. He was one of the few award winners who wasn’t hustled off the stage on a night when the hook was out early to keep things moving, perhaps a bit too aggressively.

“No one is more closely associated with the organization that he runs than Joe Harper. Joe Harper is Del Mar,” said Jeannine Edwards, who was back as emcee after missing last year following shoulder surgery.

Harper began: “A number of years ago, when I came home from flunking out of my third college, I was concerned what to tell my parents, so I tried the truth. I said to my dad, ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I flunked out again. I just don’t think I’m very smart.’ And he said, ‘Your mother and I figured that out quite some time ago. But you were smart enough to figure it out, so here’s some advice for you – always surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.’ That turned out to be fairly easy at first.”

Harper went on to praise and roast several members of his management team. He said track president Josh Rubinstein “came to work at Del Mar when he was in high school. I think his mother had to drive him to work the first day.” He described his vice president of racing, Tom Robbins, as a stall walker, or, as Harper put it, “a weaver.”

“What do you do with a weaver? Get a goat. David Jerkens,” Harper said, referring to the track’s secretary, “thank you for being the goat.”

Harper had some barbs directed at Santa Anita, which recently replaced its racing secretary, Rick Hammerle – who attended the Eclipse Awards – and track announcer Michael Wrona.

“All you racetrack managers out there, you need some really talented people? Just go down to the Arcadia unemployment office,” Harper said. “They’re all there. Racing secretary. Race-callers. It’s a berry patch for management.”

Harper closed by referencing his early mentor, the late cinematographer Joe Burnham.

“This is going next to your Eclipse Award,” Harper said.

Ortiz got his first Eclipse Award as champion jockey, but he was upstaged by his 3-year-old daughter, Sarai, who posed and waved enthusiastically to the audience as her father began his speech. Ortiz dedicated his trophy to his brother Jose, a reciprocation of the tribute Jose paid Irad last year when Jose got his first Eclipse Award.

Hamilton, honored as the top apprentice jockey of 2018, was seated with a large entourage, including his father, jockey Steve “Cowboy” Hamilton, whom he acknowledged as he wrapped up his remarks.

“I’m so excited; this is one of the best moments of my life,” Hamilton said.

In fact, it’s that way for most winners, which is what made the early hook so jarring. The tone was set early when owner Gary West had the music come up while he was accepting for 2-year-old male champ Game Winner, a speech that included the classy move of acknowledging all-star groom Eduardo “Lalo” Luna, who also cared for Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify.

When majority owner Sol Kumin accepted for champion 3-year-old filly Monomoy Girl, the increasing volume of music failed to get him to wrap it up, so the producers of the show ran the prerecorded video of nominees for the next category, bringing Kumin’s night to a close.

There’s a fine line to navigate, and the Eclipse Awards are trying to fine tune the process to avoid a repeat of co-owner Perry Martin’s embarrassment two years ago when accepting Horse of the Year for California Chrome. Thursday’s ceremony came in well under two hours, which was refreshing, but when a patron like Peter Brant – whose Sistercharlie won the female turf title – gets played off the stage with a speech that was far from overstaying its welcome, that’s not a good look.