Trainer Eric Guillot and Southern Equine Stable LLC had clearly defined goals for Champagne d’Oro from the beginning. Through 14 career starts she has never run in an allowance race, or in any type of claiming race. She raced against stakes company in the Cinderella and Landaluce last year as a 2-year-old in her second and third starts, when she was a maiden.

Like fine wine, Dubai Majesty is improving with age, and her progress has been steady.

Dubai Majesty, bred in Florida by Harold J. Plumley, raced three times in 2007 as a 2-year-old and won once, a victory in a $50,000 maiden claiming race.

Trainer David Fawkes had a definite plan for Big Drama’s 2010 campaign: Bring him back fresh for the second half of the season, race him exclusively at distances of six and seven furlongs, and point to the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs.

Fawkes’s plan worked to perfection, with the end result being a victory on Breeders’ Cup Day and a spot for Big Drama as one of the three finalists for a 2010 Eclipse Award in the sprint division.

It is an unusual year when Juddmonte Farms does not have an impact at the top of the game. Given that, 2010 was not an unusual year.

In Europe, Juddmonte’s 3-year-old colt Workforce won the two most famous races in the Old World, the Epsom Derby and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, while in North America, the 5-year-old mare Proviso sailed through the regular season hitting all the right notes to land among the finalists for champion turf female.

The Celtics, the Yankees, the Steelers – as far as sports dynasties go, they’ve got nothing on Goldikova, who has rendered one of the most challenging events in the Breeders’ Cup canon to nothing more than an elaborate stage for her particular brand of perfection.

The promise was always there.

As a 3-year-old in 2008, Winchester won his American debut in the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park. In an abbreviated 2009 campaign, he placed in graded stakes three times.

In 2010, Winchester put those elements together, with the best campaign of his career, one good enough to merit the role as a finalist as the outstanding turf male of 2010.

There are three finalists for champion older filly or mare, but the other two finalists are merely understudies to racing’s diva, Zenyatta. For the third straight year, Zenyatta is an overwhelming favorite to win this divisional title. And for the third straight year, she is a top contender for Horse of the Year, a prize that eluded her in 2008 and 2009.

Unrivaled Belle traveled from California to Florida and spent much of the year in New York, but for her in 2010, old Kentucky was her home. At Churchill Downs in the spring, she beat Rachel Alexandra, the 2009 Horse of the Year, in the La Troienne Stakes. That proved a preview of coming attractions, for when Unrivaled Belle returned to Churchill Downs in the fall, she won the most important race of her career, the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic.

When trainer Todd Pletcher was seeking a ready-made horse for owner Candy DeBartolo in fall 2007, he contacted Gary Young, a respected clocker and bloodstock agent in Southern California, and asked him to find a horse who was ready to win next time out.

Young suggested a 2-year-old daughter of Malibu Moon who had raced just once, finishing second in that debut.

That horse was Life At Ten, and, as Young predicted, she won her next start. But over the course of the next two seasons, the oversized filly could not break through to the next level.

Horse of the Year for 2010 will come down to two horses, Blame and Zenyatta. Horse of the Half-Year? That was an easy call: Quality Road.
No horse in North America was nearly as dominant the first six months of 2010 as Quality Road. His 2 3/4-length win in the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope on Jan. 3 served merely as a palate teaser. One month later, he turned in what might have been the single most powerful victory of the season, a track-record-setting 12 3/4-length thrashing of eight overwhelmed rivals in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap.