Second photo honored with Eclipse Award

The administrators of the Eclipse Awards have decided to select a second photograph for this year’s Eclipse Award for Photography after acknowledging that the submission was not initially passed on to the category’s judging committee.

Michael Clevenger, a photographer with the Louisville Courier-Journal, will receive the award for a photo of American Pharoah and his rider, Victor Espinoza, as the two crossed the finish line in the Belmont Stakes in New York. The photograph captures Espinoza looking over his shoulder at the field trailing behind American Pharoah, with the packed Belmont Park grandstand in the background.

Last week, the Eclipse Award administrators announced that Scott Serio, the founder of the photojournalism site Eclipse Sportswire, would receive the Eclipse Award for Photography for a shot of American Pharoah galloping over the training track at Keeneland just prior to the Breeders’ Cup. Both Serio and Clevenger will receive awards.

“Clevenger’s photo was submitted for the contest in good order before the deadline but was inadvertently not passed on to the judges,” said the Eclipse Award administrators in a release. “Last week, the Eclipse Awards Steering Committee convened the photography judges in the competition to review the photograph, and it was determined that Clevenger’s photo should be honored with Serio’s submission.”

The Eclipse will be the third for Clevenger, who also won in 2002 and 2010, both for pictures that appeared in the Courier-Journal.