DRF national handicapper Mike Watchmaker and correspondent David Grening discuss the Eclipse Awards picture midway through the racing season.
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Ratings for July 5, 2011. For weekly updates: Watchmaker Watch »
MIAMI – Three years of pent-up emotion for the connections of Zenyatta came bursting forth Monday night when Zenyatta was announced as the 2010 Horse of the Year, a title for which she had finished second the two previous years.
Jerry and Ann Moss, the owners of Zenyatta, reacted with great emotion. Jerry Moss largely held it together while making an acceptance speech, but his voice at times cracked, betraying the intense feelings he had for this moment.
Winners of the 2010 Eclipse Awards, selected by voters from Daily Racing Form, the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters, and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. Vote totals are given for the top three earners of first-place votes in each category. Full voting breakdown >>
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Blame won the battle, the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but lost the ultimate war when Zenyatta was named Horse of the Year at Monday night’s Eclipse Award ceremonies. Neither Blame’s trainer, Al Stall Jr., or owner, Claiborne Farm’s Seth Hancock, were surprised in the least by the announcement, they said.
The Horse of the Year winner will be announced Monday night. Watch DRF.com for full coverage. Profiles of Eclipse finalists >>
The near-perfect campaign by Zenyatta in 2010 was enough for her to merit the title as Horse of the Year.
Consider the status of Zenyatta and her leading rival Blame as they entered the starting gate for the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 6.
Another year of Zenyatta, another debate over Horse of the Year. What else is new? I get that there isn’t a set criteria that a voter has to abide by. I also get that with our horses making fewer and fewer starts throughout the year that some amount of thinking may have to occur "outside the box." I guess that accounts for the extra credit I keep hearing about, which can be earned for getting spots on mainstream TV channels. Yet I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Didn’t get it last year; don’t get it this year.
I’m voting for Blame.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fervent admirer of Zenyatta and I’ve never rooted so hard for a horse to get up in the stretch as I did for her in the Classic, even though I had no financial stake since Dakota Phone had long since turned my pick-four tickets to confetti.
But Zenyatta didn’t get there despite a relatively clean trip with no loss of ground or momentum. She had dead aim, but Blame held her off fair and square.
Consistency is a valuable commodity in race horses, and Rightly So has been consistent from the beginning of her career, through all of her races in 2010.
She finished a close second, beaten by a half-length when she debuted against New York-breds as a 4-year-old in January of 2009. That was her only defeat that year. Racing exclusively against New York-breds, she crushed maiden specials by 10 lengths in her next race, then was the easy 5 3/4 length winner of an allowance race.
