Come Dancing had been fairly productive in prior years, but there was no reason to expect her to become an Eclipse Awards finalist prior to her 5-year-old season of 2019.
And yet Come Dancing reached unforeseen heights, recording an eye-popping Beyer Speed Figure while also becoming a Grade 1 winner and millionaire for her owner-breeder, the Blue Devil Racing Stable of Marc Holliday and James O’Reilly.
Even after one start as a 2-year-old, Covfefe was something of a celebrity. After all, she was named in recognition of the social-media craze that resulted in May 2017, when President Trump inexplicably tweeted the made-up word.
But Covfefe, the Thoroughbred, didn’t just settle for fame by name. Her feats as one of the world’s fastest Thoroughbreds have earned her a notoriety entirely unrelated to the Trump gaffe, and that’s a good thing.
If a book were to be written about Belvoir Bay, most readers would consider it implausible.
Belvoir Bay suffered serious burns and smoke inhalation as one of many horses lost for several days in the aftermath of the tragic Lilac Fire that ravaged San Luis Rey Downs in December 2017. A little less than two years later, she was a Breeders’ Cup winner and a finalist for the Eclipse Award as female sprinter of 2019.
No way, right?
It’s all true.
A revised “wait for it” running style was the key to success for Blue Prize in 2019. It was also the theme of her campaign – start slow and finish fast.
After losing her first three starts of the year, Blue Prize turned it on late by winning her final three starts, including the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita. Combined with her second victory in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland, Blue Prize ended the season 3 for 6 and as an Eclipse finalist as outstanding older dirt female.
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.
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
