Trainer Mark Casse has long been a fixture at the Sovereign Awards ceremony for Canada’s leading trainer, winning eight times. Now, he joins the Eclipse Award ceremony as a finalist for North American’s outstanding trainer of 2016.
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DRF Past Performances
Haveyougoneaway began her 2016 campaign by winning a pair of ungraded sprint stakes at Oaklawn Park. They were solid efforts, but little did anyone suspect that the 5-year-old mare would go on to become a divisional finalist for an Eclipse Award.
By late summer, however, under new silks and in a new barn, Haveyougoneaway was the unofficial leader of the female sprint division by virtue of winning the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes on the Aug. 27 Travers undercard at Saratoga.
As the 2016 Breeders’ Cup approached, Finest City was barely on the radar screen for a divisional Eclipse Award. But one sensational run changed all that.
By winning the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on Nov. 5 at her home track of Santa Anita, Finest City became an Eclipse finalist in the female sprint division.
It’s difficult to find more superlatives to describe Songbird, the heavy favorite to earn her second career Eclipse Award. The filly has already run through most standard descriptors. She belted high note after high note in 2016, taking an unchallenged record into her showdown with two older champions in the 2016 Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
“She’s run a lot of people out of her stall, I can tell you that,” trainer John Servis said of Cathryn Sophia. But luckily, the diminutive bay filly put her fighting spirit to good use on the racetrack, taking down one of her division’s signature events to stamp herself as an Eclipse Award finalist.
When the National Steeplechase Association released its pre-season rankings of horses in training for 2016 last February, Top Striker wasn’t among the top half-dozen prospects. That’s understandable, considering Top Striker missed the entire 2015 season and hadn’t won a jump race since taking a stakes for novices in November 2014.
For much of his career, both in Europe and the United States, Scorpiancer has been an underachiever.
He went through the sales ring three times, the last when he sold for $309,000 at the Brightwells Cheltenham Sale in March 2014. He subsequently went just 1 for 5, his lone victory a maiden hurdle against weak competition during the winter meet at Ludlow Racecourse in England.
B. Wayne Hughes’ Spendthrift Farm took quality over quantity to its extremes on the racetrack in 2016, taking home seven graded stakes wins in just 35 non-partnership starts.
Those seven wins accounted for half of the Lexington, Ky.-based operation’s 14 victories, with total earnings of $2,644,672. Spendthrift’s five Grade 1 wins were the most of any North American owner in 2016.
Just call him Mr. Breeders’ Cup.
No rider in history has won more championship races than Mike Smith, and in 2016 the jockey added to his lore when he snagged three Breeders’ Cup events, led by the $6 million Classic with Arrogate.
But the splash Smith made at Breeders’ Cup was just one aspect of his memorable year. He was aboard Arrogate for his track-record performance in the Travers, and he also teamed regularly with Songbird, who won seven of eight starts in 2016 including the Alabama and Santa Anita Oaks.