The filly Songbird was one cool customer.

“Nothing bothered her,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer recalled. “She was a very smart filly. Whatever happened out on the racetrack, if a horse got loose or something, none of that bothered her.”

In addition to her smarts, Songbird had personality and looks.

“She had a very happy demeanor about her,” Hollendorfer said, and a physique he described as “big and strong.”

Songbird, a 4-year-old in 2017, had attributes that made her one of the most well-liked horses in the stable.

The 2017 season was icing on the cake for Stellar Wind, already an Eclipse Award and multiple Grade 1 winner. As she entered her 5-year-old season, Stellar Wind was made.

“Her value was locked in,” trainer John Sadler said. “[2017] was a chance for us to enjoy her, running in top-class races. It was a good season. It didn’t end the way we wanted, but that’s horse racing.”

Mind Your Biscuits took first-year trainer Chad Summers on the trip of a lifetime in 2017, winning the $2 million Golden Shaheen in Dubai and the Grade 2 Belmont Sprint Championship.

The season also included runner-up efforts in the Cigar Mile and Gulfstream Park Sprint, and a rapidly closing third in the Twin Spires Breeders’ Cup Sprint. The campaign has made Mind Your Biscuits an Eclipse Awards finalist in the male sprint division.

Roy H burst to prominence this year, rewarding the patience and perseverance of trainer Peter Miller.

Roy H began his 5-year-old season by winning a first-level optional-claiming race going 6 1/2 furlongs on the Santa Anita turf. He ended his campaign by rallying to take the TwinSpires Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar by a length under Kent Desormeaux, a victory that likely clinched an Eclipse Award as North America’s best male sprinter.

The success of Gun Runner on the track in 2017 translated into Eclipse Award finalist recognition for he and many of those connected to him when the top three vote getters in all 17 divisions, both human and equine, were announced on Friday.

For trainer Luis Carvajal Jr., 2017 began with hope and ended with Imperial Hint being voted an Eclipse Awards finalist in the male sprint division.

In his final start as a 3-year-old in 2016, Imperial Hint won an optional-claiming race at Parx Racing. The victory left Carvajal encouraged.

“I was waiting for the horse to develop the way I thought he would,” Carvajal said. “I thought he had a lot more to give as he continued to mature.”

There were always a few better than Wuheida in major stakes in Europe last summer and fall. That was not the case in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 4 at Del Mar.

Wuheida, 3, recorded an 11-1 upset in the $2 million race at 1 1/8 miles and is on the list of finalists for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding turf female of 2017.

Wuheida was expected to make her American debut in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland in mid-October, but was withdrawn because of a foot problem. She was redirected to the Filly and Mare Turf.

A consistent and devastating late kick gave Off Limits three consecutive stakes wins across the nation in autumn 2017 and a place among the finalists for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding turf female of the year.

The defining race was her final start of the year: the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 26. Ridden by regular rider Joel Rosario, Off Limits closed from last in a field of 11 to reach the front in the final furlong for a comfortable one-length win.

She was tough. She persevered. She won major races. Lady Eli was herself in 2017.

The highlight of her 5-year-old year came at Saratoga when Lady Eli encountered trouble running in two graded stakes in July and August at Saratoga – and still won them both.

Large shadows are hard to escape. Alydar won major races by large margins, and yet his name seems forever attached to Affirmed’s chestnut hip. Gun Bow was a match for the great Kelso and then some, but he is remembered only in passing for their few memorable encounters. And pity the memory of a horse like Coaltown, a flame-throwing Hall of Fame champion in his own right, who is referred to more often than not as merely Citation’s stablemate.