The dark-haired woman in the long black dress stood in a bright light brandishing a whip, a leather muzzle, and soft-cloth restraints. Arrayed before her in the dimly lit ballroom, her audience braced for the strict punishments implied for careless disobedience. They mumbled in meek compliance and stared at the clock. Soon it would be their turn to obey.Whether in person at Gulfstream Park or cozy at home in front of a video device, anyone focused on the Eclipse Awards Dinner Thursday night can be forgiven if they thought they’d stumbled onto a road company version of “Eyes Wide Shut.” The parade of tuxedoed winners dutifully marched to the tick-tick-tick of an unseen timer who, instead of enjoying the grateful comments, obsessed with the approach of the one-minute mark and a cue to the house band for the dreaded play-off music.Time is of the essence. Time for no man. Time after time.There is something to be said for brevity, as long as brief remarks are compressed into a meaningful message (see address, Gettysburg). Unfortunately, some of the Eclipse recipients were so cowed by the artificial limitations on their thanks you’s that they tended to chafe at the yolk and waste precious time.“I’ve been admonished that if I screw this up tonight and go over one minute I’m going to get some demerits of some kind, so I’m not going to do that,” said Gary West as he took the podium for Game Winner, thereby spending seven seconds he could have used to add jockeys Joel Rosario and Mario Gutierrez to his otherwise gracious thank-you list. West came in at 1:23, precisely the same amount of time it took for Game Winner to win the Del Mar Futurity.As time goes by. Time and time again. No time to lose.John Green needed more than the 1:34 he used in tribute to family, partners, and his precious Jaywalk, but give high points to John Servis as he slid to the podium while the band played to express his appreciation for his training team and his owners. Henceforth, Servis should enter every room to musical accompaniment.I suppose it was okay for a minute or so to be spent on a nod to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and the introduction of “trophy gals” Michelle and Stacy (no last names, please). And it’s hard to begrudge two and a half minutes of video dedication to the dear, departed members of the Thoroughbred community in 2018. But the three minutes devoted to the NTRA “Justify & I” selfie contest is three minutes that could have been used by Sol Kumin to flesh out his demand for more time on stage in praise of Monomoy Girl.(I will never again be able to listen to “My Cherie Amour” without summoning the sight of Kumin battling the band for more time.)Peter Miller, befitting the trainer of repeating Male Sprint champ Roy H, needed only 45 seconds to say thank you and correct the announced ownership to include the Rockingham Ranch of Gary Hartunian. Miller went back to his table, where wife Lani had freshened his merlot, then came back to the podium 40 minutes later to accept the Turf Male trophy for Stormy Liberal and claim the 15 seconds he had earlier left unused.Time flies. Time crawls. Time heals all wounds.As has been pointed out many times before, the Eclipse Awards Dinner used to be a leisurely affair, hidden from the restrictive demands of streaming video air time. There was plenty of space for rambling speeches and cracks about how early some of us had to get up tomorrow. At a lull in the action, a guest could slip out for a bathroom break and return without missing either the beginning or the end of the steeplechase award.The clock was challenged most effectively by Chad Brown, who gave the bandleader a look I would not want to see twice when a few notes rose up at a key moment.“You’re not gonna turn the music up on my kids, are you, man?” he said, pointing to the pit.There was a lot of the time well spent, bringing unexpected moments of memorable delight. The wave from Irad Ortiz Jr.’s little girl. The way Wes Hamilton’s teenage voice broke in gratitude. The sight of Kosta Hronis skipping across the stage to accept the award as Outstanding Owner for the family operation.Hronis, whose brother Pete was back at their Central Valley farm, lavished praise on trainer John Sadler and explained their success with the motto, “John doesn’t tell me how to grow grapes. I don’t tell him how to train horses.”It was Justify’s night, to be sure, but years from now Joe Harper’s acceptance of the Award of Merit for his stewardship of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club will be studied as the way to do it well. He deflected credit, needled gently, got laughs when intended, and left the stage with a dedication to his mentor, the Eclipse Award-winning cinematographer Joe Burnham, who died in 1994.He did everything but add Robert Penn Warren’s last word on the subject, good advice for those who run the show:“The name of the story will be time,” Warren wrote. “But you must not speak its name. Tell me a story of deep delight.”