Barbara D. Livingston

With all but one of her eight starts in 2011 resulting in a first- or second-place finish, few horses could match the combination of class and consistency that It’s Tricky brought to the 3-year-old filly division.

Plum Pretty began 2011 with back-to-back third-place finishes in graded races at her home track of Santa Anita. Not bad, but certainly not great. But after her Hall of Fame trainer, Bob Baffert, sent her to New Mexico for a 25-length romp in the Sunland Park Oaks as a 1-20 favorite in late March, she was a brand new filly.

The only act tougher to follow than Elvis might have been Sinatra. Havre de Grace took the stage while notes from both were still ringing in the rafters. From 2008 through 2010, Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta won six Eclipse Award championships between them, including Horse of the Year trophies in 2009 and 2010. Havre de Grace answered with a 2011 season of championship quality that combined attributes of both towering predecessors, plus a few grand flourishes of her own.

Barbara Livingston

Had the season ended in mid-June, with the running of the prestigious Ogden Phipps at Belmont Park, there could have been a serious argument made for a gray 4-year-old filly from the barn of Todd Pletcher as being the division leader in the clubhouse.

Benoit & Associates

Jack Nicklaus always liked to remind younger players that as tough as it was getting to the top, it was a whole lot tougher staying there.

Coady Photography

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “there are no second acts in American lives,” but Caleb’s Posse certainly proved him wrong in 2011.

Travis Lindquist/Getty Images

It was not until exactly seven days before the Kentucky Derby that Animal Kingdom was signed, sealed, and delivered for the race.

Bob Coglianese

To merely look at Shackleford’s win percentage in 2011 would be missing the point. Fortunately, Eclipse Award voters didn’t miss.

Shigeki Kikkawa

Not every good 2-year-old who raced in Southern California in 2011 resided in Bob Baffert’s barn.

Favorites didn’t exactly perform on cue during the 2011 Breeders’ Cup, winning just four of the 15 races. Only one of the nine favorites came through on Saturday of the two-day BC weekend at Churchill Downs, and that was a gelding named Regally Ready, whose convincing triumph in the $1 million BC Turf Sprint was enough to make him an Eclipse Award finalist in a division normally reserved for dirt runners.