Book’em Danno is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding male sprinter of 2025 for a season in which he swept three graded stakes races at Saratoga Race Course.
For one of those wins, the Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt on July 19, he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 111. The number ranked as the highest Beyer put up by a male sprinter in 2025 and was tied for second-highest of the year behind the 115 that Sovereignty earned winning the Travers.
It’s not easy to win an Eclipse Award. It’s even tougher to repeat.
Thorpedo Anna entered 2025 with lofty expectations, having won eight stakes in 2024 and earning Eclipse Awards as outstanding 3-year-old filly and Horse of the Year. Even though her 4-year-old campaign did not quite stack up to the year before, it was a success.
The year 2022 seems like a pretty long way back, doesn’t it? Yeah. That was the year Rebel’s Romance won his first Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf. This past November, he very nearly won his third.
Only a flying finish from rank outsider Ethical Diamond kept 7-year-old Rebel’s Romance from a Breeders’ Cup three-peat spread over four years. Second in his third Breeders’ Cup Turf, yes, but still an absolutely first-class racehorse who would be a worthy champion.
Such an unusual horse, this incredible gelding, and in so many ways.
Bentornato needed just 1:08.20 to establish himself as a finalist for an Eclipse Award for outstanding male sprinter of 2025.
That was the time it took for him to win the $2 million Cygames Breeders’ Cup Sprint over six furlongs Nov. 1 at Del Mar.
Bentornato sparred with defending champ and 2024 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Straight No Chaser through fractions of 21.48 seconds for the opening quarter and 44.14 for the half-mile before going on to a 2 1/4-length victory.
John Velazquez became the first jockey in North America to surpass $500 million in career mount earnings in June as part of a 2025 season in which he also was the regular rider aboard unbeaten FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance hero Ted Noffey.
The accomplishments have led to Velazquez being voted a finalist for the Eclipse Award as North America’s outstanding jockey – an honor the 53-year-old native of Puerto Rico won in both 2004 and 2005.
Notable Speech did not win the Lockinge Stakes in May, nor did he win the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, and he definitely did not win the July Cup, checking in fifth. His very presence in the July Cup, a race over a six-furlong trip a full quarter-mile shorter than Notable Speech had ever run, told the tale: The colt’s connections, owner-breeder Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby, were looking for answers.
Many of the most important stakes races conducted in North America last year went through jockey Flavien Prat, who led all riders in graded wins as part of his push for a second straight Eclipse Award as outstanding jockey.
He also became one of two riders to ever surpass $40 million in mount earnings in a year, alongside Irad Ortiz Jr.
The new heights were reached in part by Prat winning 46 graded stakes races in 2025. He led his peers in Grade 1 wins with 13; Grade 2 wins with 15; and Grade 3 wins with 18.
Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. set a single-season record for mount earnings in 2025 as part of a long list of accomplishments the rider amassed in pursuit of his sixth Eclipse Award as North America’s outstanding jockey.
Ortiz also led all his peers in wins with 351 from 1,621 mounts. In addition, he ranked second in graded stakes victories with 36 – winning a minimum of one such race every month in 2025. Ortiz also won three sprint championship races during the Breeders’ Cup and took down riding titles at Saratoga, Churchill Downs, and Keeneland.
Gezora delivered one of the best comebacks of the autumn when she won the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Del Mar in November.
Four weeks earlier, Gezora, a 3-year-old filly in 2025, finished 13th of 17 as a longshot in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris, Europe’s top race for 3-year-olds and up. She was beaten 10 1/2 lengths by Daryz, failing to make an impression.
Put to the test in a challenging 4-year-old campaign, Kopion still managed to flourish for trainer Richard Mandella. A fifth-place finish against male rivals in the Cygames Breeders’ Cup Sprint does not define the talented filly, who only reached that lofty spot after lighting up the track earlier in the year.
