A winner of four consecutive Eclipse Awards from 2013-16, Javier Castellano is once again a finalist for the award in 2019.

Castellano, 42, led all jockeys in graded stakes wins with 36 and ranked first with 13 Grade 1 stakes victories, topped by his win aboard City of Light in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational in January at Gulfstream Park. His 54 stakes victories were third best.

Castellano’s purse earnings of $25,053,713 ranked third behind the Ortiz brothers – Irad and Jose – while his 197 victories placed him 22nd among all riders.

In a year when the older male dirt division was one of the strongest of recent vintages, McKinzie ranked right near the top, consistently putting up outstanding efforts against the best horses in the country while racing in New York, Kentucky, and his home state of California while proving effective from a mile to 1 1/4 miles.

In 2018, Irad Ortiz Jr. wrested the Eclipse Award from his younger brother Jose’s arms, and it doesn’t appear he’s ready to relinquish it any time soon.

Ortiz, 27, set a single-year record for earnings by a jockey in 2019 with $34,109,019, smashing the mark of $28,120,809 set by Javier Castellano in 2015. Ortiz led all jockeys in wins with 324, 62 of those coming in stakes, which also was tops among riders. His 35 graded stakes victories were second only to Javier Castellano’s 36.

You know things are going your way when you can win the Kentucky Oaks aboard one horse in May then five weeks later choose to ride a different horse and beat the Kentucky Oaks winner in another Grade 1 race.

That summed up Jose Ortiz’s 2019, a year in which he won the Kentucky Oaks on Serengeti Empress and then the Grade 1 Acorn on Guarana, beating Serengeti Empress by six lengths. Those were two of Ortiz’s seven Grade 1 stakes victories in 2019, a year in which Ortiz won 58 stakes, 27 of which were graded.

Vino Rosso saved the best for last, fitting for a horse who aged like fine red wine.

Seth Klarman, who races under the name Klaravich Stables, and William H. Lawrence have owned horses together for 15 years, and recently decided to wind down their partnership due to divergent interests. Klarman was continuing to expand his stable while Lawrence was looking to downsize his Thoroughbred holdings.

The pair went out on a high note as a finalist for the 2019 Eclipse Awards as owner.

:: Full list of 2019 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Former MGM executive Gary Barber is the co-founder of Spyglass Entertainment, for which he was among the executive producers of “Seabiscuit.” Barber’s Grade 1 performers placed him among the finalists for the 2019 Eclipse Award as outstanding owner.

Peter M. Brant was a prominent owner and breeder through the 1970s and 1980s before backing away from the sport in the 1990s, focusing on the White Birch Paper Company he runs and also pursuing his other equestrian passion, polo. A few years ago, he decided to dive back in to Thoroughbred racing, breeding, and sales, and quickly made headlines with several quality runners, many imported from Europe.

He is among the finalists for the Eclipse Award for leading owner of 2019.

Imperial Hint is an Eclipse Award finalist for champion male sprinter for the third consecutive year following a season in which he won a pair of Grade 1 races led by a track-record performance in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap at Saratoga Race Course.

Imperial Hint covered the Vanderbilt’s six furlongs in 1:07.92, lowering the Saratoga mark of 1:08, which was set in 1972 by Spanish Riddle and later equaled by Speightstown. Imperial Hint was winning his second straight Vanderbilt.

Had there been parimutuel betting on the Grade 1 Iroquois Hurdle Stakes at Percy Warner Park in Tennessee in May, it’s a safe assumption Scorpiancer would have been an outsider.

Even with his reputation as the Eclipse Award champion steeplechaser of 2017, Scorpiancer had missed the 2018 season and failed to finish his first start of 2019, in the Grade 3 Temple Gwathmey Handicap Hurdle in Middleburg, Va., on April 20.

:: Full list of 2019 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories