Maybe it’s just me, but U.S. racing feels like it’s almost on hold until the resolution of the Horse of the Year debate between Justify and Accelerate at the Eclipse Awards dinner on Jan. 24.

After pulling off one surprise in a Grade 1 race and nearly pulling off another, it was no surprise that Knicks Go is a finalist for the Eclipse Award for champion 2-year-old male.

Knicks Go, a son of Paynter owned by the Korean Racing Authority, gave trainer Ben Colebrook and jockey Albin Jimenez their first Grade 1 victory when he scored by 5 1/2 lengths as the 70-1 rank outsider in a 13-horse field in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland in October.

As training hours wound down on the morning of Feb. 18 at Santa Anita, Bob Baffert was asked about a first-time starter by Scat Daddy who was to make his debut that afternoon.

“I’ve got big plans for that colt,” he said.

A few hours later, Justify burst onto the scene, and though his career lasted only five more starts over the next 111 days, what he accomplished in that time was remarkable.

“You’ll never see another horse like this,” Baffert said while admiring Justify in his stall at Pimlico the morning after the Preakness.

It is unusual in this age of specialization to find a 3-year-old as effective in top-class company on dirt as on turf, but Catholic Boy proved himself that rare commodity, winning Grade 1 races on both those surfaces during a 2018 campaign in which he fashioned a terrific second act after failing to make the spring classics.

Unique Bella was special right from the start.

“We thought she was a good one right away,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said, reflecting on her works as an unraced juvenile in summer 2016.

She was a gray blueblood – sired by Tapit, produced by Breeders’ Cup winner Unrivaled Belle. The hope was that Unique Bella would run to her pedigree. It turned out, she accomplished a lot more.

If she were not a top-class racehorse Abel Tasman could have been a house pet.

“She was one of the sweetest mares,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “She was sweet and kind, like a female version of American Pharoah. You could send a child to her stall to pet her.”

Gun Runner was one for the money in 2018, and then he was gone. The 2017 Horse of the Year was kept in training as a 5-year-old long enough to win the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 27, in a conclusive 2 1/2-length victory over 3-year-old champion West Coast, to put $7 million worth of icing on an exemplary career that touched parts of four seasons.

Once the Pegasus was in the books, Gun Runner entered stud at Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky, along with his heady bankroll of just under $16 million.

Grade 1 races, which pit the highest quality stakes horses against each other, are typically among the most difficult to win. However, Chad Brown’s success in 2018 was such that he made the difficult seem routine.

Brown on the year won 20 Grade 1 races, the most of any trainer in North America. Moreover, he added 27 victories in Grade 2 and Grade 3 races to notch 47 graded wins altogether in 2018 as his stable amassed $27,546,057 in purse earnings, second-most all time by a trainer in a calendar year, trailing only Todd Pletcher’s record of $28,116,097 set in 2007.

Highlighted by his development of Justify from an unraced 3-year-old to the 13th winner of the Triple Crown, trainer Bob Baffert has been recognized as an Eclipse Award finalist for 2018.

Justify put Baffert, a Hall of Famer and already a four-time Eclipse Award winner, in select company with the late Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons as the only trainers to have won the Triple Crown twice. Baffert’s first Triple Crown came with American Pharoah, the eventual 2015 Horse of the Year who would cap his career by winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic that fall.

Although trainer Steve Asmussen lost Gun Runner to retirement after the colt’s victory in last January’s Pegasus World Cup, his stable lost none of its usual proficiency in 2018. He finished the year with 401 victories from 1,905 starters, and his stable’s earnings of $26,457,276 were second-most among trainers, behind only Chad Brown.

That success, topped by Gun Runner’s Pegasus send-off, has resulted in Asmussen being selected as an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding trainer of 2018.