Sometimes you look at a horse in competition and wonder: How much of this is pure instinct? Is this creature just running fast because its genes urge it onward? And then you watch Wise Dan and think: Well, this guy, at least, really wants to do it. This horse wants the competition. This horse is not just running fast. This horse is racing.
Winchell Thoroughbreds purchased Tapit for $625,000 as a yearling and later retained an interest in the Grade 1 winner when he retired to stud at Gainesway Farm in Lexington, Ky. That investment has paid dividends, as Tapit became North America’s leading sire with a record-shattering 2014 season, fueled by several Winchell colorbearers.
John Velazquez is chasing after his third Eclipse Award as outstanding jockey after a 2014 season in which he led all riders in Grade 1 wins. He collected three in a row Oct. 4 at Keeneland as part of a five-win day marked by Wise Dan’s score in the Shadwell Turf Mile, Carpe Diem’s victory in the Breeders’ Futurity, and Dayatthespa’s score in the First Lady.
Drayden Van Dyke jumped right into a career in racing following his high school graduation, traveling to Southern California from his home in Arkansas to work for trainer Tom Proctor. His ambitious move has paid dividends, as Van Dyke, 20, is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding apprentice jockey of 2014.
Looking back with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, 4-1 was quite possibly the overlay of the year when Eclipse Award finalist Untapable made her 3-year-old debut in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes.
Even 14 months after the fact, Keith Desormeaux still couldn’t believe he left the 2013 Keeneland September yearling auction with a son of Afleet Alex for whom he paid a paltry $17,000.
She danced almost every dance at six different racetracks from coast to coast. She was very much the embodiment of the philosophy that trainer D. Wayne Lukas has demonstrated for four decades – that racehorses are meant to race. And the combination of her innate ability and Lukas’s faith in her enabled Take Charge Brandi to mount a late-season charge that made her the heavy favorite to win an Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old filly.
It has become something of a rarity for a Thoroughbred to win a Grade 1 stakes at 2 and then come back and do it again the following year. Sweet Reason was sufficiently talented and durable to do so, and the daughter of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense earned a spot among the Eclipse Award finalists in the 3-year-old filly division.
“It’s not how you start but how you finish” is a phrase that applied to Stopchargingmaria, who earned a spot among the Eclipse Award finalists in the 3-year-old filly division with a strong second half in 2014.
Nationwide in 2014, Stephanie’s Kitten commanded attention in the filly-and-mare turf division, running in six consecutive Grade 1 races in Kentucky, New York, and California.
